


Are You There, Istus? It's Me, Taako.

by Hekaerge-Athenias (Athenias)



Series: Places We Never Meant To Be [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: AU where there's no adventure just this, All other ships besides Taakitz Blupjeans and RQ/Istus are probably minor tbh, Also the major character death is Kravitz but its ok he gets better, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Fantasy Wal-Mart, Fluff and Angst, Hijinks & Shenanigans, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Meet the Family, Minor Davenport/Merle Highchurch, Mutual Pining, Past Character Death, Playing fast and loose with how D&D works, Ren - Freeform, Ren Kravitz and Johann are friends because this is my Adventurezone now, Sharing a Bed, Starblaster As Family, The Raven Queen Adopts Kravitz at the tender age of thirty five, This Is Not Going To Go The Way You Think, Time Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2020-07-08 10:54:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 104,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19868446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Athenias/pseuds/Hekaerge-Athenias
Summary: Taako likes to think that meeting a goddess in the Girl’s Toy section of a Fantasy Wal-Mart was where his life got… well, got really fuckin weird. Sure, his sister and her husband turned into liches a while back but that's just something that happens sometimes, and he just got fired from the Library of Arcane History for reasons he can't legally disclose to anyone in public, but still. It's not Goddess on a trike type of weird. But hey, Istus gives him sick bling, so what's he gonna do? Turn her down? Have you even met him?Kravitz has long since abandoned the notion that his life was ever normal since, for as long as he can remember, he's been following a raven with golden eyes. Of course, there's also that time he knows for a fact he died, but something fucked up along the way because he's still alive and the necromancers that pulled out his heart aren't. Also, what happened to his heart?It's the Adventure Zone!





	1. The Fuck's an Emissary, anyway?

Taako likes to think that meeting a goddess in the Girl’s Toy section of a Fantasy Walmart was where his life got… well, got really fuckin weird. Sure, it was _relatively_ weird before, between the way Merle looks at plants, Davenport’s tolerance of said looks, Magnus being… the way that he is (honestly? Thank Istus for Julia, Taako wouldn’t have been able to handle another year of his bullshit), and the actual, genuine liches Taako’s roomed up with. 

Speaking of—

“Okay, so, step one’s done,” Lup announces over her shoulder without sparing any of the other six people marching behind her a glance as they pass through the sliding door. “Which means that—“

Magnus raises his hand from next to Barry. “Uh, What was step one again?”

Taako scoffs, gesturing wildly to the people milling about Fantasy Wal-mart from inside the shopping cart. “Fucking getting here, _Magnus_.” 

“Oh. Right.”

A pause that stretches just a _li_ _ttle_ too long.

“... what was step two?”

Lup, for the most part, successfully elects to ignore the fact that anyone could forget in the first place. “Okay, so, Barr, you’re with us, natch,” Taako snaps a finger gun at his brother-in-law from the cart, “Cap’nport, Merle, form team gross old men, and Lucretia, babe, sorry, but it’s your turn to babysit Mags.”

Magnus perks up immediately and makes a comment about how together they make one competent adult, and drags Lucretia off into a different aisle despite her protests.

“He’s going to get a fish,” Merle says with absolute certainty, scratching his cheek and looking around the store for anything that catches his eyes. After a moment, he leans over to Davenport and stage-whispers something about Hawaiian shirts. With that, seven turns to three.

“Alright, losers,” Taako says, sticking his leg out and over the edge of the cart, “we need some more soda, cereal, a bag of those mini colored marshmallows, and uh… fuck, what else was it?”

“Hot Cheetos?” Suggests Lup.

“...a cake?”

“For what, _Barold_.”

Barry shifts nervously, hand reaching for the back of his neck. “Well, uh, celebrating you moving on in life?” He tries.

Of course, that’s an extremely sound excuse to eat an entire cake with three people. No one decides to mention that Taako didn’t necessarily _voluntarily_ leave his job at LAH, but gods damn did that bit of info not bother him a bit. Shrugging nonchalantly, “eh, alright.”

Soon enough Taako’s holding bottles of soda in his lap, cereal tucked in on all sides of him, and the marshmallows somewhere at his feet. They’d delicately given the frosting instructions to the poor baker, who at least tried not to look shocked when they asked for a Candlenights-themed cake (“sirs, ma’am… it… it’s June?” “And what about it, boychik?”, at the same time as, “It’ll be a Candlenights gift at some point...?”) that had nothing but, ‘Smoke grass eat ass!’ written across it in gaudy neon yellow frosting.

Which meant they had like… an hour and a half to fuck around before it was ready, which, shit. Barry and Lup leave Taako (still in the cart, alas, because the will of Gods alone would have to move him) in the middle of a hot pink aisle, right smack dab in the middle of the barbies. From the loud laughter coming from a few aisles over, they were probably having the time of their lives on the play-test video games. 

Taako was busy swiping through Fantasy Grindr, still on a search for at least _one_ interesting guy because, c’ mon, He’s _Taako_ when a crash sounds from the bicycle aisle. No one else outside of the abandoned aisle makes a move to investigate it, so neither does he. 

Not a second later, squeaky pedaling sounds, and from around the corner comes an outrageously tall woman on a ridiculously small, ridiculously pink kiddy bike. She comes to a stop a few feet from Taako, eyes amused under her veil. Long, multicolored scarf trails across the floor and back around the corner. Her long hair pools into her lap, bangs concealed by a kid helmet equipped with unicorn ears and horn. “Sup,” she says in a voice that makes the hair on Taako’s arms stand on edge, tilting her head back to get a proper look at him. 

“Yo. That crash you?”

“I fucked up my portal here, yeah. I was supposed to pop up behind you, but Pan is absolute shit at distracting Rav,” she says casually, cracking her knuckles. “I suppose it was my working, some time ago, but who’s to say?”

Alright, so. That’s absolutely fucking Istus, and Taako should’ve known from the knitted scarf and cardigan, especially considering most of those colors don’t exist and certain threads are glowing silver. “Oh no, it was deffo your work, for sure. Gonna tell me why you’re here to visit me other than seeing the most _amazing_ product of your work?”

“Nah, I was just dropping by to steal mortal objects I don’t have a use for—“

“No need to get sarcastic, lady.”

Istus laughs, a noise that rings out like bells. “Of course. My apologies, Taako. I’m here to give you a pitch.”

Taako leans back in his cart, arms limp over each side. “Alright. Let’s hear it.”

“I need you to steal some items from the planes of reality for me, or, rather, for me to give to my girlfriend.”

“Deal.”

She brightens immensely, her all-knowing smile only widening. “For the three of you… don’t look at me like that, you know just as well as I do that you have sticky fingers when no one’s around to babysit you. For the three of you to be able to cross between planes, I have to make you my emissaries. Unofficial, right now, but when the three of you _do die_? You’ll be working for me. Well, except maybe Merle, Pan and I are still working out the kinks.”

Taako takes pause, but not for his own sake. He’d take the deal regardless— an opportunity to be able to stay with Lup? He’d be stupid to pass that up. “Merle and Magnus…”

Istus doesn’t respond or even acknowledge that he’s being paired up with those chuckle fucks. It’s only natural though, isn’t it? Out of the seven of them, they’re the only three that have morals so fucked up they’d immediately agree to help a goddess steal from, presumably, other deities.

“Wait. Can’t you just ask nicely for this shit? I mean, you’re _Istus._ ”

She smiles benevolently at him. “Where’s the fun in that?”

“Shit, alright, can’t argue with that. Dumb and dumber should be fine with this if you’re even asking in the first place.” Wordlessly, Istus unbuckles the kiddy helmet, turns it over, and throws a bag directly at Taako’s face.

By the time it falls into his lap, Istus is gone.

Weirdy enough, so is that fucking bike.

Taako decides it’s not the weirdest thing to happen in the past five minutes and, with a shrug, opens up the bag. He can’t _see_ inside, exactly, but when he reaches in he grabs onto something cold and round, then a slip of paper folded neatly. Pulling his hand out reveals a fantastically gaudy Opalite ring that goes on his left thumb without another word (the rest were already covered with mismatched and equally terrible rings), and what looks like a grocery list scribbled hastily on a piece of parchment in pink glitter pen.

Lup comes barreling down the Aisle with a video game held tight in her arms, Barry hot on her heels. They don’t waste time shoving Taako’s cart back into action, Barry hopping onto the side of the cart while Lup shoves with the fury of a bat out of hell. “Find anything interesting?” Taako asks, Note already securely tucked into his pocket by the time they came running. 

“Wii Sports Resort,” is all Barry manages out as he struggles to catch his breath. He curses, and fishes around in Taako’s purse for his inhaler because of course everyone shoved their shit into his bag when he wasn’t looking. Lup continues her race, absolutely determined on getting that cake and getting the hell out. On the way, Taako reaches past Barry on several occasions to grab whatever jewelry catches his eye. 

He decides to wait until all seven of them are waiting to check out to break the news, sipping from a Fantasy McDonald’s soda Lucretia had thrown in his general direction. “So,” he says, admiring his new ring, “Merle, Magnus,” the bag changes hands to Magnus first, who pulls out a set of lock picks absolutely radiating celestial energy, “I sold our souls to Istus in the Girl’s Toy Aisle. Hope that’s alright.”

Lup stops in the middle of scanning a box of Fruity Pebbles, and Davenport nearly drops the terrible romance books he’d found on sale. “I’m sorry, you did _what?_ ”

For the most part, Taako does a good job of looking casual, already pulling out a nail file and setting to work on his digits. “Yeah, uh… something about her girlfriend? I didn’t ask many questions and she was short on time.”

Merle pulls out a pair of glasses from the bag and spends a good minute scrutinizing them before he speaks up. “Well, she probably meant for us to do this shit anyway, so there’s no point in delaying the inevitable.” Switching out his glasses, he hums appreciatively. Colors dance across the lens when he turns his head. “Besides, Pan’s a generous dude. He’ll be willing to share when I beef it.”

Taako snorts. “Man, on the bright side, you’ll finally know how your kids feel.” Lup stomps on his toes, which one, he’s wearing sandals you absolute _monster_ , what the fuck, and two, fair. Good ol’ reliable Taako might’ve goofed that shit up a bit.

“Uh… she tell you what we’re doing?” Magnus asks, hands shaking a little as he pockets his gift. Taako nods sagely, gesturing to zip up his lips. “No, no, that’s bullshit and you know it. What prying ears are in fucking Fantasy Walmart?”

“Garfield.”

A shiver passes through the group. “Okay, that’s fair.”

Merle grumbles to himself as he scans his last Hawaiian shirt. “I hate that fucking dude.”

“Agreed.”

“Oh, dip, the tortilla chips weren’t on sale.” Heads turn to Magnus, eyes comically wide.

They can hear footsteps in the distance. Lucretia has a thousand-yard stare trained at nothing unless the Beauty Aisle sign was spilling the universe’s secrets. “Run,” she says, with wisdom beyond her twenty-something odd years. 

And so they do that.

It’s kind of amazing, the timing all seven of them make to get back to the apartment complex. Taako kicks open the door to their apartment with maybe a little too much force, cake in hand. “Okay, _so_ ,” he says over his shoulder, plopping the cake unceremoniously on their coffee table, “Thoughts on my current sitch?”

“Yeah uh, what the fuck, dude?” Lup calls from the kitchen, various rustles and slams giving away her position. “You got a plan to keep us from getting arrested for our accidental death crimes?”

“I’m pretty sure she already knows about our death crimes, babe,” Barry (Gods bless him) pipes up, adjusting his glasses. He’s the first to leave the kitchen with a box of shitty wine. “I mean, she controls almost everything we do? And also, she’s probably the reason we found _out_ we committed death crimes, so.”

“Okay, sure, but _fuck_.”

“What, you thinking about how I beat you in getting the best afterlife gig?” Taako’s smile is easy, practiced. It’s not enough to hide his problems forever, but Lup still scoffs dramatically and moves him over with a knee as she sits down.

“Nah,” she says, slinging an arm around his shoulders and throwing a leg over Barry’s lap. “It’s just… weird? I knew you’d find a way not to leave us when shit hit the fan, but doing an errand in return for basically immortality? Kinda wack.”

Taako shrugs, twisting his ring. It’s got the same energy as his stone of Farspeech, he thinks? Well, if his stone of Farspeech had a super-powerful stone baby with the Philosopher's stone. “I got off easy. Mags and Merle, maybe a little less.” He doesn’t elaborate. Lup takes a bite of cake. “Need a little excitement, anyway. Gotta spice up my resume so I can get that teaching position and LAH will wish they _never_ fucking fired me.”

He side-eyes his brother in law from the corner of his eye, still fidgeting in his seat. Spit it out, Barold, he says, nudging Lup’s leg into his while he resumes their weekly ritual of watching Fantasy Bachelor in Paradise. “So, theoretically,” he says, scratching at his absolute monstrosity of jeatpants (Jean sweatpants), “you could ask Istus to get the Raven Queen to let us off with like, a slap on the wrist?”

From the way Lup scowls at both of them, they might have considered it for a little too long. Nonetheless—

“Hey, Istus?” Taako says, holding his left thumb up to his ear. There’s a crackle on the other end followed by a long, tired sigh.

“No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to ask!”

“I’m not going to help your family get out of getting themselves out of their death crimes, intentional or not, and _no_ I can’t give you more jewelry. That would be overkill, even though we both know you’d look absolutely killer.” There’s a small curse, the sound of knitting needles brushing together, and another sigh. A smile remains in her voice when she speaks again. “If you want to figure out how to help them, I’d suggest going on a walk. Goodnight, Taako. Lup, Barry.”

He turns back to Barry. Barry hasn't blinked in two minutes, which, impressive, but Taako is going to win this staring contest no one remembers starting. Lup hits both of them upside the head. No one laughs, but Taako does announce that he needs some shitty store-bought cake _pronto_ , which ends up leading to the three of them tipsy and giggling as they shove the couch and coffee table away, entirely too excited with the prospect of playing Wii Sports Resort. Bachelor in Paradise could wait, Lup said with absolute authority; this was an opportunity they couldn’t afford to miss.

They end up throwing one of the remotes into the vase of flowers on the table. A gift from Lucretia, only a day old. She’d handed it to him after her shift a little sheepishly and apologized for not being able to help him this time and _C’mon it's_ so fucking hard to hate her for more than like, an hour when she pulls shit like this. Like the fucking adults they are, they don’t speak a word of it, even as Taako vanishes to retrieve the broom from whatever hellscape they’d last shoved it. He finds it delicately balanced atop the shitty China cabinet filled with preserved… things, undoubtedly a power move past Lup or Taako made the last time they got wasted.

He ignores the person standing in the doorway and talking angrily to Lup at first, sweeping glass into the dustpan and moving the controller onto the table. “Okay, first of all, _Bane_ , you don’t even own the building? Second of all—“

“—is someone else in there? I swear you’re having another party. Let me in.” Barry is standing shock-still between their house plant and the TV, eyes blown wide as he meets Taako’s gaze. He fixes his glasses with slow movements and gestures to where Taako’s wand had been shoved into his hair hours ago. 

‘Help’, he mouths, and that’s all Taako needs to hear. In an instant his hair comes tumbling over his shoulders, wand previously keeping the ‘do intact in hand, and Barry’s vanishing to the thin air at the same time Taako’s Blinking himself into the fire escape. Unbeknownst to Captain Captain Bane (Lup had to bite her lip when she heard Taako crash back into existence outside, shoulders shaking in silent laughter), one (1) Barry Bluejeans lands on his and Lup’s bed, hair a little out of place from how abruptly Taako had moved him. The caster of the spell, meanwhile, decided to take Istus up on that aforementioned walk. Sure, he’s kind of tipsy, but there’s no way he’s going to be able to face Bane after the last time. Magnus, Merle, and he didn’t exactly… uh… end off on a good note with him? If Barry wasn’t there, it would’ve gone to shit, but this time around finds him lacking the same confidence. So. A walk it is.

Taako doesn’t bother to tie his hair back into a bun, unceremoniously shoving his wand into his back pocket like the dignified wizard he is. The streets are mostly empty, at this time of night. He sees no familiar faces for the first few blocks. Even the barista fifteen minutes away from closing isn’t familiar, but the sigh she lets out is just as desolate as Leon’s. He doesn’t thank her for taking time to make his coffee and the nerds’ Chamomile, because why would he (again, he’s _Taako_ ), but no one would know if he left a silver piece or two behind as a tip.

He passes by a garage— the first activity he’s seen so far— and hears Hurley call out to him. She’s leaning out of a battlewagon, waving enthusiastically. Sloane looks over her shoulder from the arcane core she’s inspecting. Instead of bursting into a wide smile, she gives a ghost of one and nods in his direction. The bags under her eyes are large, but then again, so are Taako’s. He returns the favor, calls out, “Hope you bought that!” With no bite to match his bark. 

“You were _with_ us, stupid!” Hurley shouts back, cupping her hands around her mouth. Taako’s already begun to walk away, still facing the garage. Sloane’s head shakes slowly and despite her features becoming less clear the further he got, he swears she was smiling. 

“What? I can’t hear you! You’re too far away! Tell me later—!” 

Taako spins on his heels while he shouts back at Hurley and Sloane, about to go on to convince them to show up around his parts to catch up, when he finds himself diving face-first into some poor fool’s face. He has a thought, in the two seconds that it takes for the tray in his hands to right themselves in a levitation spell that's absolutely flawless, thank you very much, and all of the other dude’s papers to go flying. And that thought, as eloquent as Taako at nine-thirty can be, is—

_Either I’m the most oblivious fucking flip wizard in Neverwinter, or this dude came out of nowhere._

Nat twenty on his perception roll in the fucking bag (not that he knew it at the time because, again, not the smartest wizard), Taako watches the stranger drop to the floor and gather his papers. “Yo, my man. What kind of job’s got you staying out this late?” He asks, open hand holding whatever stray, dramatic papers decided to fly high above their heads. 

“Er—“ golden eyes glance up from the papers he’s painstakingly reorganizing, free hand reaching up to adjust the _nerdiest_ glasses Taako’s ever seen. Looking like he’s seen a ghost, he tucks hair behind his ear. “Investigation?” He says, uneasy, and wait a fucking _minute_ that’s a different accent than before.

“You’d be a shit investigator if you sounded like that all the time,” he says, offering the papers in his outstretched hand like the shittiest olive branch the world had to offer. “No offense.”

“None taken.” The stranger that Taako has now taken to calling TDH (Tall, Dark, and Handsome) in the past thirty seconds smooths his suit with both hands, adjusts the feathered cloak over his shoulders. There’s pink crystal (?) crumbling and falling off of him with every movement. “I get nervous. Not many people have… the gall to call me out for it.”

“You can say balls, homie. We’re a very vulgar homebody, casa de Taako.”

“Oh, no, I just didn’t think of anything clever. Shit, that was your name you just said, right? Taako?” He considers a quick one-liner, maybe a pick-up line, before deciding against it and giving a noncommittal shrug. Which. Still bad, but who cares. “I’m Kravitz. Sorry about the whole uh, running into you deal, wish I could make it up to you, but I _really_ have to be somewhere right now.”

Taako waves his hand in the air vaguely. “Yeah, no, get it, but dude. Handsome. You look dead on your fucking feet. Like— hang on, fuck, I’m almost out of spell slots you better like this—” glancing to his cup of coffee, he shifts the position of the hand previously full of loose parchment, and hands over the duplicate that appears the next time he blinks. “Take this bad boy and live a little, Krav. Capitalism might hold your future but lattes are now.”

Kravitz, on the bright side, doesn’t turn the coffee down outright. He seems sort of confused by the concept at first, but we’ve all been there. Then he’s smiling, small and genuine. Which, Okay. This hot stranger has absolutely no right to smile so sweetly. What the fuck? “Thank you, Taako. I… I really appreciate it.”

Bracelets fill the silent night air in return as Taako takes the drink tray back in hand, shoulders rising and falling. “Yeah, yeah, don’t mention it. Literally. Don’t mention it. I’ve got a record to keep, capiche? Can’t have someone fucking that up no matter how hot they are.”

He schools his smile into a very serious look, nodding earnestly even while he bites his lip to hold back a laugh. “Of course. We can’t have that. Terrible press, I reckon.” 

“Finally _someone_ gets it!”

“I—uh— wasn’t kidding about the rush, though. I have to go.”

“Don’t let me stop you.” Taako waves over his shoulder, already headed in the opposite direction. He’d have to start heading home before the charms on the cups wore off and he ended up with the shittiest cold latte in the world. Also, Lup would have his _ass_ if she had to microwave tea again. “Hope you come around this side of town again, Kravitz! It’d be nice to see another pretty face here.”

He doesn’t stick around to hear his reply, and even if he did, Taako doubts he could hear it.

Because, dangling precariously from the brim of his shitty wizard’s hat, is a raven’s feather. He’ll pocket it without really knowing why until he’s getting ready for bed later that night, and checks the numbered list for no other reason than something inside him urging him to.

The first item on the shopping list Istus gave them glows brightly with a thousand colors. He nearly guffaws at the sticker next to it-- the sort of ‘great work!’ sticker you’d get on elementary school quizzes staring into his soul.

Taako never got one of those fucking stickers as a kid. 

~~__1\. A Feather from a brush with a stranger, who knew you whilst lost to time._ _ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

Kravitz first died when he was twenty. He doesn’t remember much in-between the before and after, but he got some of the gaps filled in after he’d come back to his body and was, you know, actually able to process what he saw. Before, he’d been headed out of his apprenticeship with a manilla envelope of paperwork to go over. 

After, he’d been sitting in the center of a ritual circle, covered in blood that was and wasn’t his, shivering from the cold that steeped deep into his bones. A raven stared at him impassively from the head of one of the mangled hooded figures scattered across the cave, golden eyes blinking slowly. A black cloak was wrapped tightly around his form. Whether it was there before, he could no longer remember. 

He only knew he died when a kid detective stumbled upon the evidence following a string of missing persons cases a year ago and had published a report in the community Gazette.

He left after the raven when it finally took flight, shaking hands gripping tightly onto both ends of the black-feathered cloak and pulling it closer to his body. He doesn’t look down at the necromancers to see if he recognized them. No, he puzzled after the raven, brows furrowed as he tries to figure out the details to the bizarre dream he’d just come back from. He can’t remember most of the words spoken, as all dreams tend to go, but he distinctly remembers a woman, sitting on a throne and towering over him, her golden eyes sparkling and black braided hair ruffling like feathers. Her form was… tentative at best, but he recalled her being elvish, and rather resembling his mother. Or how he thought his mother would look like. The details got fuzzy.

The raven led him to a small town nearby. It only stopped once at the outskirts to land briefly on his shoulder, lean it’s beak to his ear, and speak.

“ _Be ever vigilant, my child. I will come to you when I need your assistance_.”

And then it vanished in a puff of smoke, at the same moment an exhausted old woman stumbled from a tavern and immediately froze at the sight of Kravitz. 

Kravitz, of course, immediately decided that he’d hallucinated the raven come next morning, and continued with his life without any additions to his gym routine, thank you very much.

He never stopped to consider the possibility that he did, in fact, meet the goddess of death, or any goddess, for that matter (despite the fact that his eyes were now golden, when they were previously a muddy brown, and he now had permanent True Sight. He was still working those two out), until he stumbles into a public restroom after a particularly hectic performance, only to find that instead of dull whites and greys of government regulations, the entire room is a pitch-black, bathroom goers frozen in time. Some poor fool's stuck in the middle of zipping his fly on his right, another washing their hands to his left.

The handicapped stall is the only one open, a hazy light surrounding the doorframe. When Kravitz brings a hand to nervously fidget with his collar, he finds that the black-feathered cloak he’d hung up in his closet for good fifteen years ago is back around his shoulders. Briefly, Kravitz considers that someone’s cast an illusion on the whole place but, no, he’d be able to see through _that_ , if anything. He also toys with the possibility of being high out of his mind. Furthering his argument for the ‘being high despite having gone nowhere near drugs’ scenario, a raven appears on the top of the door to the nearest bathroom stall. 

“ _I need to call in my favor, now, Kravitz. I’m sorry for interrupting your post-performance high, but it simply cannot wait_ ,” says the raven, beak still sealed shut and golden eyes staring unblinkingly at him. “ _Step through the handicapped stall and into my realm, my child._ ”

Which was, of course, also the same thing Ronald the Destroyer had been told by a Warlock before he’d been murdered, so how much could Kravitz trust the sentient raven, _really_? 

He decides that it was more than he could ever have trusted Ron to make a smart decision in his short, miserable life, and steps through the portal with the grace of a poised dancer.

The elven woman is still sitting on the throne, just as he remembered her. Her feathered cloak falls further than his, and her form-fitted pantsuit has golden embroidery climbing legs to match her absurd amount of jewelry. She stares down at him for a minute, head tilted to the side in the same way the Raven cocked its head, before abruptly rising from her throne and rushing down the steps to him. “You’ve grown,” she says, with the same booming, ominous voice as the crow, but softer now. Maternal. “My, my, and your _hair_. It suits you.”

“Uh… Thank you, My Queen?” He says, because what the _fuck_ do you say to that? To any of this? Like, If it was someone else he’d be politely asking her to stop lifting his arms to check his wingspan and closely inspecting his leather shoes but she just seems so _earnest_ about seeing how he’s changed that he can’t bring himself to say anything else. “I. Shit, this is a lot to unpack.”

She pauses, mid-inspection of the engravings on the bits of gold he’s wrung through his dreadlocks. Black scleras with piercing gold irises, come back into view, clawed hands gentle on his cheeks. “Oh, my child,” she says with a breathy sigh. The Raven Queen says nothing else on the matter, taking a few strides back to get a full look at him. “I knew you’d dress nicely. Nothing like Pan’s emissaries, I’d be put to death by their hideous sandals alone if I wasn’t… well, me, to put it bluntly.”

Emissary? What does that have to do with--

Wait a minute.

Wait a fucking minute.

“I’m your Emissary?” He blurts out, rather than the original question of whether or not they wore socks with them. “Why don’t I remember agreeing to that?”

“You asked not to,” She says, gesturing for him to follow her out a door that wasn’t there a second ago, made out of the same dark granite-like the rest of the room, save for the white marble they stand upon. “Part of your terms, and to make the process at the end of your life easier. You didn’t want to remember what we agreed upon until it was time for me to call you to help on… earthly matters and you didn’t want to remember dying. Or how we killed the Necromancers.”

He opens his mouth to ask about the ‘we’ part, but the Raven Queen waves her hand dismissively. “Can’t tell you much more than that. When your time _does_ run out and you join my retinue, though, You’ll remember enough to be able to decide for yourself if you want the full picture.”

Fair enough. She gave him his life back. He’s not about to go and argue his way into remembering an event that past him _specifically_ asked to forget, though knowing the full terms to their Agreement would be beneficial. “Of course, My Queen. What will you have me do?”

She stops in front of a door thrown open with a flourish to reveal a barren room, spinning around with a bright grin spread across her frankly terrifying face. “I want you to help me propose to my girlfriend.”

Kravitz only stops walking when he nearly trips on his cloak. “I’m sorry, you want me to _what_?”

“Now, you need to be secretive about it, which I don’t doubt you can do, I’ve heard from my sources you’re rather amazing at persuasion checks,” The Raven Queen continues, pretending she never heard him, seating herself at the empty vanity and gesturing for him to sit as well. “I hold no doubts in this facet of your being, but, well. It’s exceedingly difficult to hide things from the goddess of fate.”

Kravitz sits down robotically at the (rather comfortable) bed. “How do I… Help you with this?”

The Raven Queen pulls a hefty stack of papers from the dark abyss of her cloak, dropping it into his arms when prompted as if the whole thing doesn’t weigh ten pounds. “These are the terms and agreements to your employment with me, read them over when you have time, but the last page is a list of items that I… would rather not get myself.” She clasps her hands together, glancing nervously around the room. “Or, I should say, most of them are in realms I’m not welcome in, and those who banned me know what a goddess of death’s aura feels like. By the by, do you like this room? It’s intended to be yours while you get adjusted after… well, after.”

“Yes, it’s lovely, thank you,” He says, glancing nervously at the stack of papers. “Have you highlighted where I need to sign?”

“Oh, you don’t need to sign. Just read that when you have the time. Or leave it here, if you’d rather, but I’d like to keep your head above water.” She chuckles darkly at some unseen joke of her’s, before coughing awkwardly into the crook of her arm. “Go ahead and flip to the last page.”

Instead of flipping, Kravitz simply pulls it from the bottom and sets the stack next to him. There’s nothing magical about the text, written in bold, elegant cursive. No title, either, but he already knows what it’s for so there’s no real point to giving it one. He chews on flaking skin on his lower lip, absently thinking about finding where he stuck his chapstick when he gets back home. Only a few locations sound remotely familiar to him, but the instructions on how to get to the unfamiliar are pretty direct, so he shrugs it off. “What does this one mean?” He finally asks, pointing to the first item. “How can it be lost to time?”

She turns her face upwards, cocked to the side in thought. “Istus and I… We had quite a spat, some time ago. The laws of life and death there got wonky after that, but she told me after we’d gotten together that the lab that was built upon it was now under the control of Lucas Miller. His experiments are unethical at this point, and I’m rather certain he’ll be one of your first targets, but one of them went wrong. A warlock made an emergency pact with Father Time to save those present, but it.” She pauses, licking her lips. “It warped the whims of life and death between the realms. Luckily, I was able to keep the damage from the Astral Plane, but the Ethereal and Prime Material plane weren’t given the same privilege. The Tourmaline was Istus’s effect on the planes.”

“And yours?”

The Raven Queen’s gaze is intense, bearing into Kravitz’s soul with an intensity she had kept mute up to that point. “No mortal can touch the crystal without they becoming one with it.” Her grin is wicked, now, sly in a way that only someone who thought to outsmart themselves and fate could muster. “But you’re not quite a mortal anymore, are you, Kravitz?”

His hand reaches up to the scar across his chest, mended skin where a gaping hole had been long ago. His heart still beats, but it’s always out of tune with what the designs of the world intended for him. When the day comes that it will beat no more, he’ll hardly notice the difference. 

Kravitz doesn’t know how long he’s been serving the Raven Queen. Fifteen years as a definite, whether he knew it or not, but there has never been a point in his life where he can’t recall seeing a Raven watching at the distance and he barely takes pause while his friends all say ‘What kind of fucking bird has golden eyes?’ in perfect unison, before the bird takes flight and Kravitz finds himself trailing after it. He’s followed that Raven for as long as he can remember. 

He breathes in deep and faces his Queen. In the time it takes him to gather his papers she’s already opened a portal through the closet door, standing by it with clasped hands and a motherly smile. She stalls him before he can walk through with a gentle hand to his shoulder, fingers cold in the way he hadn't felt for a long time. The Raven Queen doesn’t speak, only lifts her second hand to weave a feather through his cloak. “Be safe,” she says, ears lowering in a well-hidden worry. “I’ll be waiting.”

**✧**

Miller Labs was… well, abandoned would be putting it nicely, ‘a fucking disaster’ is the blunt, correct truth. Testing machines strewn about the room, a lab coat abandoned on the floor, tubes of all shapes and sizes cracked and broken on tables, charts abandoned and papers still drifting through the room. Pink tourmaline falls around him and on his hair like snow, and he coughs once or twice from the uncomfortable pain welling up in his throat.

Other than the piles forming on the floor and covering lab equipment, Kravitz finds that the lab itself becomes infested the further he walks. Tourmaline attaches to the hand scanners and grows up the walls, extends through broken skylights and to the moon overhead. Mice stand, frozen in time by the tourmaline that replaces any fur, bones, or organs they had before. A dwarven man stands under a broken window in what used to be a wildlife conservatory, crystalline cigarette still poised to his lips. 

It’s gruesome. Though the memory of necromancers looking more like they went through a blender are present in the back of his mind at all times, he finds this calm, serene sight of crystalline snow falling around corpses turned fragile and transparent more harrowing. He hopes that they died quickly if anything else.

Kravitz can’t tell you why he kept walking around the lab, instead of breaking off a particularly pretty rock and getting the hell out of there. If he was feeling a little romantic, he would say it was fate pulling him by a string. If he was anything else, he’d say he was fascinated by an anomaly so few could witness. 

He makes it as far as what used to be Lucas Miller’s old personal quarters before he notices anything off. He’s looking at the collection of crystals he has set up on a long desk when he knocks one to the floor on accident. “Shit,” He says, immediately dropping down to put it back in its place. Before the emerald chunk is within an arm’s reach, he tenses and holds his breath.

There are three sets of footprints outlined in powdered tourmaline, untouched by his cloak dragging across the floor behind him. Recent, if he had to guess. 

Which means he isn’t alone.

“That makes this a bit more interesting,” he says to the empty room. He pockets a compact mirror on the way out and after the footprints. One is easier to follow, probably from someone who wouldn’t know how to tread lightly if his life depended on it. The second is just a small, simple outline, barely detectable if he wasn’t actively looking for them. The third shuffles like a horse through the snow.

He finds them in Maureen Miller’s old lab, a conjoined building to the personal quarters he’d just left. It’s not like they were hard to follow, all in all, and once he was in hearing range--

“Holy _shit_ I didn’t know Lucas’s mom beefed it like this!” Cries the largest of the three, the only one Kravitz can see clearly as he strides through the hall. He’s staring at Maureen’s crystallized form in the center of the room, her hands wrapped around a figure that didn’t crystallize with her, hunched in on herself. Unlike him, none of them can walk freely-- all wearing Null suits and seeming equally bitter about the whole situation they’ve caught themselves up in. Still, they were dumb enough to come here in the first place, so he’s intrigued enough to know why that he crosses through the doorway.

Only to immediately be met by a magic missile that misses his head completely from an elven wizard in the middle, a throwing knife from the large burly man that lands in his feathered cloak but doesn’t pierce through the feathers, and a Zone of Truth that’s seemingly too easy to pass the check on from the dwarven cleric. Almost immediately, before he can get a chance to explain himself or fight back, the elven man is stepping forward with long strides, eyes wide. 

“What the fuck, _Kravitz_ ?” He asks as he nears, the other two from his party looking just a little put out to not kill someone today. Kravitz pulls out the throwing knife without much resistance, only to immediately freeze upon hearing his name. “What-- You-- Why are you _here_?”

“How do you know my name?” He asks, slowly, still holding the throwing knife. Taako looks thrown for a loop, confused, then outraged, and then back to confused.

“We met like, last week? You had all these papers and kept talking about being in a rush.”

“No, we definitely didn’t, I’d remember meeting someone like you, and besides,” He pulls the papers out from the bag of holding attached to his belt, gesturing to them plainly, “I just got these today.”

Taako purses his lips, cocks his hip to one side and pulls a list from thin air. Looks at the list, then Kravitz, then back to the list. “Oh, _shit_!” He says after the silence grows uncomfortable, “Time’s fucky here, yeah?”

The list vanishes and, with it, any of the air remaining in Kravitz’s lungs. Theoretically, someone could figure it out, but the fact of the matter was that no one he knew, well, _knew_ , except for him an hour ago. The elf smiles at him, proud and knowing, the gap in his teeth on full display. “Which means that-- bear with me here-- theoretically, we could be existing at the same time right now, but in two separate points in time. Like, _you’re_ still in last week, but we’re in the present, but the lab itself is struggling to keep itself in time at all, let alone us.”

It. Well, fuck, it makes sense, considering what he’s heard. “Of course! Time doesn’t exist in a linear sense here, Naturally, there would be a point where two separate points in time would merge and put us into the same space.” He’s smiling, now, drawn in by this stranger’s charm. Adjusting his glasses, he holds a hand out to Taako. “I know we’ve already met in my future, but I’m Kravitz.”

“Name’s Taako, don’t live it down,” he says, chipper, shaking his hand briefly. Due to the null suit gloves, he doesn’t get much of a feel for his hand _under_ the fabric, but beggars can't be choosers. “Oh, shit, wait, since you’re from last week, have you seen a compact mirror laying around? Lucas said it had a connection to the Plane of Thought but we weren’t listening.”

There’s an awkward minute that consists of Kravitz forgetting he has a bag of holding and balancing his absurd stack of papers in one hand and digging in his suit pocket for the compact until he fishes it out and presents it to Taako. “I was going to keep it for myself but I wouldn’t handle stealing from someone alive too well.”

Taako laughs nervously as he stuffs the compact into his bag. “No, no, Lucas would deserve it, man. Dude’s a piece of work.”

The burly man is the first to walk over to the two. “Hey, I’m Magnus, uhh…. I just thought I should ask… How the _fuck_ are you alive?”

“Oh, shit, yeah, my man, shouldn’t you be crystal right now?”

“I built up an immunity to killer tourmaline?”

“Yeah, sounds about right,” Says Taako and the dwarf (who would later introduce himself as Merle), in perfect unison.

Magnus, meanwhile, squints suspiciously at Kravitz, who tries his best to smile non-threateningly, which either works or Magnus doesn’t care enough to call him out on it, because he trails after Merle to continue looking for… whatever it was that drew three genuine mortals into the one place that would kick their asses. 

“So, Krav,” Taako says as he seats himself into a spinning chair, with the clear intent on not helping his friends, “What brings you here?”

“Would you believe me if I said tourism?” Which, okay, Kravitz knows this is a shitty lie, he’s been lying his way out of tense situations is entire life but something about Taako just tells him he won’t be getting into a fight if he keeps something secret.

“Definitely not,” he says immediately, green eyes alight with amusement. “You don’t have to tell me _why_ you’re here, stud. Just tell me what you’re looking for. You never know, there could be something here a week in the future that’s just what you need.”

Kravitz laughs through his nose, looking away from Taako. “No, I doubt it but thank you. I’m just looking for a good cut of the Tourmaline.”

Taako spins around once or twice in the chair, before stopping with his foot, the other still crossed on the seat. His tongue sticks out between his teeth before he’s perking up in posture. “Throw the knife Magnus tried to kill you with at the wall,” he says, spinning to face the wall immediately in front of the desk. “Bet you a copper it’ll work.”

He returns Taako’s smile with one of his own as he positions himself some ways away, holding the knife high in the air. “I’m far better at a lyre than darts, you know,” He says, adjusting his glasses in the moment it takes for him to aim. Taako makes some comment about him being a musician, which Kravitz responds to easily enough that he doesn’t quite remember what he said exactly in the first place, because the knife digs into the tourmaline like butter and sends pieces crashing onto the ground, faster than he can swoop in and grab them but his lips are faster, letting out a high whistle that encases the pieces in a golden light, inches above the ground. 

Taako leans back into his seat, pocketing the wand he’d had at the ready. “If you’re better at the lyre, I’d hate to know how any other musician feels listening to you perform.” He’s not smiling, but the smirk is close enough and his words fill Kravitz with the closest thing he’s ever gotten to exhilaration while off the stage that makes it impossible for him not to smile a little too wide than what’s usually considered normal.

“Oh, shit! Taako, we gotta go!” Magnus calls, in time with a rumbling that shakes the lab. Kravitz feels a surge of otherworldly magic slam into him, and Taako must feel the same because he’s shaking all over as he struggles to his feet. Merle has a book out and yells something to whatever begins banging at the closed doors opposite of the ones Kravitz entered through. 

“Kravitz, come with us,” He says, legs still trembling. He shakes his head, pulling Taako’s arm around his shoulders and placing a firm hand on his waist. “Oh, good.”

“I’m not coming with you,” he says, hurrying after Merle and nodding at Magnus, still standing at the ready with a wicked-looking ax. Taako looks just about crestfallen, but it’s concealed by a blank nothingness before he can console him. Still, he figures they were owed an explanation. “I can get out a different way. Magnus, help Taako out of the lab, please. If Merle starts to feel something, anything, that’s just a little bit off about himself, keep an eye on him. I don’t know what’s keeping these things chasing you alive, but they’re pure narcotic energy.

“I have no idea what that means but alright,” Magnus says, sheathing his ax and unceremoniously hoisting Taako over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Taako grumbles in protest but otherwise seems unphased by the occurrence. 

After a moment’s deliberation, Taako gives a tiny wave. “See you on the flipside, bones.”

Kravitz watches them vanish down the hall for a long while before he hears a door burst open and he slowly, deliberately, turns himself around to the crystal monster. “My Queen,” he says, rather pleasantly, in the general direction of the rock monster, “A portal would be _lovely_ right about now.”

A portal opens at the broken door behind the towering monstrosity. A raven lands on top of a stack of papers on the desk and says nothing, only staring straight at him.

Pink Tourmaline comes crashing down on Kravitz in the form of a boulder thrown across the room, but he’s lunging to the desk, missing it by a braids width on his head. He grabs the papers, holds them tight, and watches as the raven sails through the room, down between the legs of the crystal monster, and through the portal. Kravitz manages to jump over another swinging attack that smashes the chair Taako had just been in moments ago, and has only a split second to cast his spell, the high note torn from his throat the moment the mica brushes against his tongue. The Tourmaline creature hunkers over as the room shakes, rocky fists slamming into the sides of its head. By the time it’s done smashing in itself, Kravitz is gone, sliding under its rocky legs and through the portal after the raven.

He emerges on the other side on a sidewalk, and it’s still night out, which, good. He’d hate to have lost time. He has only a second to consider the time before he hears someone speaking, just inches from him, but his ears are still ringing from the Shatter he’d just barely saved himself from succumbing to, and then he’s falling forward, his papers flying and-

Oh. It’s Taako.

But he looks different. His pale blue skin is glistening in the moonlight, as it was before, but the bags under his eyes are deep and his hair cascades down his back instead of being tied into an intricately braided bun and there’s an absurd amount of rings on his long, delicate fingers. Most importantly, though, is the lack of recognition in his eyes. He cracks a slow, nervous smile, cheeks flushed, and asks, “Yo, my man, what kind of job’s got you staying out this late?” while he swoops down to gather papers with him. There’s a steaming cup tray levitating above his head. 

Kravitz takes a minute to find his words, still struck by how breathtaking Taako is, how easily he can crack a conversation. Not that he didn’t notice before, no, but he was… preoccupied, then. “Er,” he says, after a minute, in his normal voice thanking his Queen that she numbered the papers and adjusting his glasses, then hair. But then he looks back at Taako and immediately feels heat rush to his face and he says “Investigation?” and, shit. He went Cockney again. Why does this always happen to him?

“You’d be a shit investigator if you sounded like that all the time,” Taako says, handing more papers to him. His smile is gone, but his lips still rise in one corner in a pathetic apologetic look that broadcasts that he didn’t, in fact, feel sorry. “No offense.”

Kravitz adjusts his collar, flipped up during the travel over, and adjusts his feathered cloak, shaking more tourmaline off of him. Oh, Queen, he’s going to find tourmaline on him for weeks. “None taken,” he says. 

And then Taako quickly insists that he take a duplicate of one of his coffees (how he did that so quickly and perfectly Kravitz would never know) because he seemingly looked like a dead man walking, and, after a while of insisting he was in a rush (He wasn’t, not really, but he did want to get his equipment back from the venue soon), he extracts himself from Taako and rushes down the sidewalk.

“Hope you come around this side of town again, Kravitz! It’d be nice to see another pretty face here,” he hears him call after him, probably assuming he wouldn’t be able to hear. But he does, and Kravitz just quickened his pace and downed half the sickeningly sweet latte, fixing the gold-eyed raven that’s waiting for him at the awning of his flat with a look. 

“ _Did you get it?_ ” The raven asks, instead of teasing him. “ _I mean, of course, you did, but is it shiny?_ ”

“Of course it’s shiny,” Kravitz says, tossing his bag of holding up to the Raven. “Bring that back to me sometime tomorrow, please? I keep my sapphires in there.”

_“You’ll receive the bag tomorrow. You’ve done well, my child. Rest now and rest easy._ ”

Kravitz, of course, doesn’t rest now or rest easy. Instead, he scrolls through his stone contacts while he juggles between hanging his cloak and changing into his pajamas that are, rather appropriately, covered in little skulls. 

The line only rings twice before the three-way call picks up. “I hate you,” is the first thing Ren says, “I truly, genuinely hate you.”

“Hate me all you want, but I’ve got to tell _someone_ about this and I’m still certain neither of you has anything important to do right now.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Says Johann, sounding thoroughly exhausted, “I’m doing important things.”

“Daydreaming about Avi doesn’t count,” Says Ren, deadpan but too quick on the jump for Kravitz to beat her to it. “Anyway, what’s got your knickers in a twist? Someone give you flack after your performance or what?”

“No, no, nothing like that,” He insists, successfully recovering from nearly eating shit from trying to put on pants with one hand. “Johann knew me around this time and Noelle’s probably mentioned it once or twice, but did I ever tell you two what I thought happened the time I went missing?”

  
There’s a pause, a few rustles on Johann’s end, and a stove sparking to life on Ren’s. “Naw, not that I knew of. You just’ told us you went missing, came back in a tavern with a wicked scar and that was that.”

Kravitz sucks in sharply through his teeth. “Yeahhhh… About that…”

“You lied to her about that? Dude, we’ve talked about that. Not telling people about your weird hallucinations isn’t a healthy way of coping,” drawls Johann.

“Your weird _what_?”

“Yeah, Kravitz got this wicked hallucination where--”

“It wasn’t a hallucination.”

Both lines go dead silent, save for the boiling of what must be water. “It wasn’t a hallucination,” he repeats, “The raven was real, and I’ve been following it my entire life. That’s not what matters. What does matter is that I _died_ when I went missing.”

An explosion of commotion. A lot of ‘what the fuck’s, and ‘Kravitz, there’s no way’s, and, finally--

“How do you know?”

“I used to remember meeting this…woman. She was elven, towering above me a few heads. Wears this long raven-feathered cape.” (“sick,” says Johann, but no one acknowledges him) “I could never remember what we talked about, but her eyes were this rich gold, and I can only show you what color they were because when I woke up in that tavern they were the same color but I just never thought of that and today, you know how I go to the bathroom after I perform, but I went in there and I came out in this throne room, and that woman was on the throne.”

He lets out a shuddering breath. No one cuts in to interrupt him, and for that, he’s grateful. “She didn’t need to introduce herself to me. I think I’ve known, for the past fifteen years, but I figured if I didn’t look at what’s right in front of me it wouldn’t catch up.” He presses a key on his piano out of sheer boredom, shoved into some corner with boxes piled high. “I always thought I died in what the paper told me was a necromantic ritual. I can’t piece together much more than that and I never really thought about why. The Raven Queen won’t let me remember the in-between of when I went missing and when I came back. I guess she considers it a blessing. In return to not remember and… well, I guess to live— she took the Arrangement from me, too— I have to work for her.”

There's a long, tense silence. Kravitz figures Johann would be the first to speak, he always is, but Ren shuts off the burner on her stove, takes in a deep sigh, and says, “But that ain’t all there is, is there? There’s something else botherin you, else you’dve kept this secret beyond the grave.”

“My Queen sent me to Miller laboratories,” He says and plows through Johanns questions of how he got there, exactly, “And in the laboratory I met three others, searching for a compact mirror because Lucas asked them to while they were there. Only, they’d gone through the room before me and yet I found the compact mirror before them despite arriving after because to them I’d been through a week ago.”

“Time broke again?” Asks Ren, after she seems to briefly choke on the drink she made.

“Not in the same way it broke for you, don’t worry. But since they were ahead of me, I technically got the compact before them. We only managed to figure out that we weren’t all existing at the same time because of this one elf who introduced himself as Taako--”

“--You met _Taako_?” She squeals, sounding beside herself. Kravitz flinches away from his stone. “Oh my gosh! What was he like? Did he do any magic?”

“Well, yes, he shot a magic missile at me that missed, but after he shot it and his friends tried to get their hits in he… well, he called me by my name. I didn’t know what to do about the situation after that other than tell him I don’t remember him, and then we figured out that he was a week ahead of me. And Taako is, well, uh. He’s nice? A little blunt, was kind of an asshole to his friends and a little bit to me but he was friendlier in the lab which makes sense I guess. I just “met” him a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, Taako’s just like that,” says Johann, with more affection in his voice than he usually does at 1 AM, which meant that he was a friend of his which—

“You know him?” He asks, just a few seconds before Ren does. 

“Uhhhh, yeah, I dogsit for Magnus sometimes. I thought you knew that?”

Kravitz did know that. And yet, he never once put the fucking dots together, because he was sort of reeling from time bullshit and then hey, a pretty elf that doesn’t know who you are any more right in front of you. He relays this to them in a much more eloquent way. “Taako went renegade in some cooking class I was in. Started bringing his sister in one week and they both just taught everyone how to cook. Set the building on fire during their last lesson before they ran from the fantasy police. I’ve been trying to find him ever since,” explains Ren, before anyone can ask her. She was, presumably, waiting with bated breath to bring up Taako in conversation. “Their cooking was fantastic, but I want to know about his magic. I’ve never met someone who casts the way he does.”

Kravitz flops onto his bed, feet hanging awkwardly over the edge. “Yeah, he’s amazing.”

“That’s kinda gay of you, dude.”

“Oh, we’re playing this game, Johann? Hey, how many love songs have you written? How many sonnets do you have in your bottom right-hand desk drawer? How many requiems are you in the middle of writing? And, hey, did you ever get around to asking Avi out?”

A long-suffered sigh. “You didn’t have to go for my fucking throat.”

“I don’t know, Johann, Folks ‘round here always say ten P.M to Midnight is Opress Johann hours.”

“It’s on our google calendar, Johann, you really should check it,” Kravitz says serenely. “Besides, what are friends for if not to give you a reality check on your devastating, devastating crush.”

Theirs a few minutes of small talk that follows, until Johann busts in with, “Hey, actually, why _was_ Taako at Miller labs?”

Kravitz stares at the night sky out his window, only to find that he can’t remember anyone ever actually _saying_ they were there for the compact... They were still looking around the lab even after Kravitz gave it back to them. “You know what?”

There’s a raven, outside his window, but it doesn't stare at him with piercing golden eyes. It has the same dark, glistening eyes that he used to have. He looks back at the raven expecting to find answers but is only left with emptiness.

“He never told me.”

  
~~**_**_1\. Pink Tourmaline from the Prime Material plane on the old Miller Labs, where time, fate, and death can no longer exist in perfect harmony._ ** _ ** ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Items in Istus's/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline


	2. If Magic is a Science, and Music is Magic, Does that Make Bards Like, Really Weird Scientists?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Angus just didn’t know how to dish what he was serving, so I was giving him some criticism."
> 
> “You don’t give an eleven-year-old criticism, Taako."
> 
> “He’s the world’s greatest detective! He’s solved murder cases! He can handle it!”

Taako’s in the middle of transmuting a dead bird to a tree sapling for his Ph.D. when Istus calls, simultaneous with Lup barging in without knocking. “Shit!” He cries, lunging sideways to grab the rack of test tubes nearly sent to their death from the force of her entrance. “Lup, answer the ring.” He gestures in the general direction of his ring with his latex gloves once the tubes are settled, the other still firmly holding the bird to his designated lab space in the third guest bedroom. Lup does her best to step over the numerous notebooks strewn around his chair, sitting through his bag immediately to his right until the ring’s held aloft, resting on her palm in the space between them.

“You’re on speaker, Lady Istus,” Lup says, shifting his loose paper to seat herself at the edge of his desk. 

“Thank you, Lup. Taako, you have to get your second item sometime soon. As in tomorrow. I need it by tomorrow night.”

“Uh, yeah, that’s not very helpful, my dude. I’m not with the list right now, read back to me what you sent us to fetch?”

“‘The last living plant at the crossings of fate, death, and time.’” She sounds amused, like Taako not being able to understand the world’s vaguest fucking Riddle is a little inside joke of hers. “Just go to Lucas Miller, Taako. He can help you from there.”

Taako makes a face of disgust, mirrored by Lup. “Why Lucas? The dude’s an ass and I don’t trust him as far as I can throw him,” he says, “which is like, a foot, if you were wondering.”

Istus hums thoughtfully. “Okay, sure, but also I told you to do it and you’re my Emissary so I’m not giving you much of a choice.”

Lup steadies Taako’s wand hand in the brief silence that follows, checking over his work with her lip caught between her teeth. “Do it,” says Lup after a moment. Then, to the ring, “Hey, Istus, you think there’s room for one more on this trip? I’ve been, get this one, _dying_ to know what happens.”

Istus laughs, sending a shudder through the two of them. God, her laugh is so majestic but it feels like a fucking fork on a chalkboard. “No, I don’t think your time to shine arrives so early on.”

“It’s not even fun,” Taako insists, watching with smug satisfaction as tree bark covers the length of the bird, cherry wood replacing feathers and beaks. Branches sprout from the length of its back, bright and lovely. He high fives Lup, and pulls his typewriter out from the floor. “All I did was meet a hot mess of a man and bam, number one’s off the list.”

“Oh, Kravitz has his reasons, dear. Now, repeat after me. First thing tomorrow, you will meet Lucas Miller at his new lab.”

He sighs and stops typing long enough to fix his sister with a tired, tired look, and repeats, “first thing tomorrow, I will meet Lucas Miller at his new lab. I’m just not going to enjoy it is all.”

A violent snort, still as terrifying as any other sound Istus makes. “I’ll make you eat your words, Taako. Fucking watch me.”

The light dims in the crystal of the ring. Lup looks away from the ring to Taako, brows furrowed. “Did she just say fuck?”

Humming, he holds out a hand. “I need the knife, homie.” Initial incision marked and painstakingly being carved, he glances at his sister. “And yeah, Istus says fuck. She’s a cool goddess, unlike _pan_. Shit, don’t tell Merle I said that.”

Lup’s smile is sickeningly sweet, doing nothing to soothe the dread cooling in his gut. “Why, Taako, I would _never_!”

And then she runs out the room. Taako scrambles after her, hands covered in plant juices and bird-tree left unchecked. Though he doesn’t know who he’s trying to kid, that bad bitch was thoroughly transmuted, natch.

“Merle whatever Lup’s saying is a lie!” He cries, slipping on the hardwood of the hallway as he slips and slides after his sister, always just fast enough to get out of reach. Merle’s head is poked out of his apartment door, a potted plant held lovingly in his arms. Other neighbors have their gazes locked on them from their doors, too. Noelle has a gallon of apple cider in one hand and a red solo cup in the other, Killian is in the middle of doing push-ups in the center of her apartment, Carey still sweating from the pull-ups she’d paused to cheer Lup on— the traitor— and Captain Captain Bane watched on in silent disappointment. “Don’t listen to her!”

Merle, however, doesn’t seem too keen on taking sides at the moment. The instant Lup slides to a stop in front of his door, mouth open to expose Taako like the bastard she is, his door slams in her face. “I don’t want to hear it!” He shouts, “it’s too fucking early! Come back to me when it’s an actual emergency!”

He could, theoretically, point out that it’s currently six-thirty at night, but where’s the pizzaz in that? The thrill? The exhilaration of watching your sister have a midlife crisis at the ripe age of a hundred and fourteen?

Instead, Taako stops wheezing long enough to point a long, slender finger at Lup and say with the most shit-eating grin he could muster, “Eat it, dude."

She kicks his knees in and watches him writhe dramatically on the floor without an ounce of sympathy. “Davenpooooort,” He whines, clutching one of his shins in his hands, “Lup hit me!”

“I didn’t even hit you, you dramatic ass. You just have bony legs.”

Davenport’s face appears in the crack formed in Merle’s door, just under the chain lock. “Are you bleeding?” He asks, mustache twitching with every syllable. Taako rolls up his satin pants and presents it in his general direction. 

“Yes! I think she broke something!” He wails, mostly for the drama of it all. He did have to pass on the memo of getting up at the ass crack of dawn to talk to fucking Lucas Miller. Shit, just thinking of the son of a bitch makes him queasy.

Davenport, for the most part, doesn’t sigh in exasperation. Instead, there’s a dull thud when he hits his forehead against the side of the door. “Taako, that’s rugburn.”

Taako looks at Lup. She stares back at him. She turns to Davenport. “Oh, no, I definitely think he broke a bone, Davenport. We might have to take him to the FER.” 

“We’re not taking him to the fucking Fantasy Emergency Room for a scrape.” He glances over his shoulder. “Did you need anything _important_?”

“Oh, yeah,” he says, taking Lup's offered hand. “Tell Merle to be ready to go at… five fifteen?” Lup mumbles an agreement. “Right. Five fifteen tomorrow morning, because we need to leave at six twenty-five and there’s no way in hell that he’s going to be ready before then. Like, there’s fashionably late and then there’s just being rude, you know?”

Davenport did know. “Alright, sure. Anything else?”

“Yeah, a gun to shoot Lucas Miller?”

Noelle all but bursts from her doorway. “Y’all talkin’ bout shooting Lucas?”

“Fuck yeah we are, dude’s got it coming!”

“I am _literally_ a cop,” says Captain Captain Bane, in his gruff, manly voice. “Are you sure this is the best place to plan a murder?”

Lup and Taako scoff in well-practiced unison. “Slow your roll, kemosabe, we’re not actually going to shoot him. Well, with a bullet.” They mime out a perfectly casted magic missile, complete with a loud ‘kaboom!’ at the end. And then, just as thoroughly practiced, everyone on their floor simultaneously turns away from Bane. “Anyway, nah, that’s it. Plan your day of peace wisely, because I don’t have the slightest fucking clue when Istus is gonna call us away next.”

The twins both take turns fist-bumping Davenport as a farewell. On their walk-of-victory (never shame, these motherfuckers know the Taaco twins are here to fucking _perform_ and the hallway is but their stage), they assure Noelle that they do not need a gun and yes, they’ll steal exactly five random pages of his research just to drive him crazy.

“You know,” Barry says, emerging from the third bedroom turned lab, Taako’s bird-tree in hand, “I think you could do some pretty fucked up shit if you worked with like… actual magical items, you know? Not shit you make yourself, but celestial items, relics made by dead wizards and shit. Like, imagine turning one of those death gauntlets into a Fantasy Bop-It. How fucked up would that be?”

“Hello, Barold, good afternoon to you too,” Taako says, swooping in to take his perfect school project, a thank you very much, away from his nefarious sweaty mitts. “Make any undead abominations today?”

“I think I merged a dead ferret to a pig and then brought it to life?” He says, and the look of confusion does nothing to give him some insight to the going-ons of a science-driven necromancer. “I think started crying for me to end it’s misery in like, animal speak? Fuck, I need a drink.”

“We’ve got oat milk and that’s fucking it, babe!” Calls Lup from the couch, not even moving to check herself. Taako knows for certain she’s telling the truth though because if there’s one thing that he remembers at the store, it’s that Barry is lactose intolerant. And it’s just sorta funny to see the look of despair on his face when they pass by the milk aisle. 

Clapping a hand on his shoulder, Taako makes no move to find him the last place they all decided was a very obvious spot to hide their alcohol stash, and then collectively forgot where they’d put the stuff. “Well, at least you can eat cereal with it.”

The sigh that leaves Barry’s lips is kind of pathetic, but he goes and gets his cereal and oat milk regardless. Taako returns his abomination to the lab, slapping a sticky note on the pot Barry had been oh so kind as to house it in, labeling it with the due date, class, and what grade he expects. It doesn’t go into a neat line, no, Taako has a _limit_ for how organized he can be while trying to break the already fundamentally broken educational system, and it goes about as far as having his notes in a general area. Instead, the pot sits, right behind a thirty-page essay on why Necromancy, if done right, is just as against the laws of death and order as him creating the Philosopher's Stone out of chicken wings.

He spends the rest of the night starting a casting circle in the center of the lab, quarantined off by a barrier that’s tangible enough for him to slap a ‘DO NOT ENTER- MAGIC AS HELL’ sticky-note on it. 

By the time he’s done, the dinner Lup made had long since gone cold on his desk behind him, the alarm clock duck-taped to the lab doorframe blasting Fantasy ABBA as a very lovely reminder that he’d stayed up until 3 AM. Again. 

Taako sighs and puts the plate in the fridge for tomorrow morning.

**✧**

Lucas Miller has used his mother’s life insurance money to buy himself the most useless, pompous ass lab you could buy. The whole thing’s made out of glass and sharp edges that is just straight up jarring to look at, not like Taako’s some sort of architect but fucking _c’mon_ , at least have some personality up in this bitch. 

Taako, naturally, keeps this opinion to himself. Instead, he sharply pops his gum and follows Magnus into the building, dragging a moping Merle with him. “Hey, Sharon!” Magus calls, putting on the good old rustic charm which, good. Means less work for Taako. “How are the kids? Good? That’s amazing. Hey, could you let us down to see Lucas? I forgot to give him something from last time.”

Last time ended in Magnus threatening to throw Lucas out a window to a gruesome death and the re-discovery of whatever the hell Liches are, but no one mentions that. Least of all Magnus himself. 

“Don’t worry about calling down to check with him, doll,” Taako says with his most charming smile because as friendly as Magnus is the dude could be dumb as bricks if he couldn’t figure out that a receptionist was going to call the man himself to make sure they weren’t here to kill him. “We called him beforehand, told us he was going to be too busy to get to the phone around the time we came over.”

Which isn’t a lie. Not really. Lucretia had visited using her press pass to squirrel out what his plans were for the following day, only to find it was, as she put it, ‘Nerd shit.’ This also meant he wouldn’t be leaving his testing room for the entire day. Sharon smiles mutedly at him but says nothing to disprove him, so Lucas has probably pulled this shit on her before too. Poor girl. 

And then.

And _then_.

“Hey Fellas!” Comes the sickening cry from the elevator, it’s presence only signaled by the distant ding.

“Aw, shit,” says Merle, as Upsy’s horrible, living, breathing face slides open.

“Climb inside my body!”

Taako looks between Merle, Magnus, and Upsy. Then to a stairwell just past Sharon’s desk.

So, they took the stairs three flights underground. You would too if you were them.

Merle falls down the steps almost immediately, but no one makes a move to catch him, so he just… continues rolling down three flights of stairs, while Taako and Magnus follow behind him, almost looking a little bored with it all. 

“Hey, Nerdlord!” Taako shouts into the dark abyss of Lucas’s underground lab when they breach the last flight of stairs, Merle landing into the shadows with a loud crash. “Got some questions for you!”

Magnus is the only person who can’t see Lucas, in the furthest depths of the shadows, looming over some electronic beast with a welder’s mask perched at the top of his head and a clipboard in hand. He looks faint at the sight of the three of them. “Oh, Fantasy Jesus. I _swear_ I haven’t been fucking around with spirits again can you guys just leave me alone for once?”

Merle dusts off his Hawaiian shirt, puts a little flower back in his beard. “Nope!”

“We’re not going to kill you, dude, stop backing away,” Taako says, fishing the list from his pocket and unfurling it as slow as he can, or, at least, until Lucas stops shaking long enough to be useful. “We got hired by Istus to get some shit for her. If you can tell us where and how to get this, we might just leave you alone for a little bit.”

“What— What the hell would the goddess of fate want from _you?_ No offense.”

Taako raises a brow at him, lip forming the beginnings of a snarl. _Fuck_ he hated this dude and his slimy... everything. He prays that he gets something out of this, or he’d be pulling up to the celestial plane real quick to fight his goddess.”Well, not that you should get yourself all concerned, but we need something from your old lab and _no_ we don’t know why, just that she needs a plant that’s still alive in that shithole.”

Lucas glances down at whatever the hell he’s working on to a tightly-sealed case next to where, presumably, Upsy would have taken them. With a resigned sigh, he sends his sliding stool over to the case and quickly types in a code. “Do any of you know where the lab _is_ ?” All three of them shake their heads because, as Taako has said before and will say until hell freezes over, _Istus does not give clear instructions._ “Figures. Suit up, I’ll have to fucking call Carey I guess--”

“Hey, Istus?”

Much to Nerdlord supreme’s grumbled mutterings about how there’s no way he has a direct line of communication with a goddess, Istus’s knitting needles click-clack in place of a greeting on the other line. Magnus leans over Taako’s shoulder, and remains there, even though Taako quickly takes up to slapping his face to try and shove him away. “Do you think you can portal us to the old Miller lab?”

“I don’t know, Magnus, can I?”

“Holy shit.” Lucas puts his head in his hands, effectively smearing oil all over his face, “They can just ask for portals. And she _let_ _s_ them.” Merle pats his knee in what is meant to be comforting but only comes off as patronizing.

“I’m a hopeful guy so I’m gonna say yes on that portal, lady Istus ma’am.”

“You’re damn right I can portal y’all over. Hit the elevator button— stop groaning, Taako, I just need somewhere to put it. Get your null suits on before you do—”

“—I already have mine on,” Merle announces proudly, placing the red gloves of his suit on his hips. “Don’t have to tell me twice on that.”

It takes a good minute or two of arguing and tripping for Magnus and Taako to get their suits on, and, by then, Lucas had already returned to his… welding? Taako doesn’t want to know, so he doesn’t ask. But he's just distracted enough that Taako can tear out five random pages from the nearest journal and pocket them. “Okay, send us over, homie,” Taako says, watching as Upsy’s horrifying, horrifying face appears. It freezes, mid-sentence, as a blinding white light forms in the space that would normally put Upsy’s fleshy insides on full display. “Any requests, Shithead?”

“Don’t call me that and no— wait, actually, yes! In my quarters, there’s this compact? The mirror’s made out of emerald. Can you get that for me?”

“Isn’t that a little vain of you, Lucas? Don’t you want any personal mementos instead of a fancy mirror?” Magnus flexes in his Null suit, watching the padded fabric shift only by a millimeter. He’s enthralled.

“It is a memento. My mom gave it to me, _Magnus_.”

He runs through the portal to avoid responding to Lucas, which, in Taako’s opinion, was probably the smartest choice. He follows after him without saying anything to the nerd fuck behind him or hearing the beginnings of one of Merle’s bits of wisdom. “Good luck, boys,” Istus says in the white space of the portal, her voice everywhere and nowhere at the same time, wrapping around Taako like a warm, heavy blanket and reminding him at the same time of a fate he doesn’t know, a person on the other end of the portal existing with and without him because of _course_ Kravitz is there, why wouldn’t he be? 

It’s only when the old Miller lab forms around them, brilliant and so very pink that Taako freezes in place and says, out loud, “What the fuck?” Because he had thought of Kravitz since they met, naturally, duh, he’s hot _and_ nice, who wouldn’t, but he hadn’t thought of him with the certainty of seeing him again. Still, breaking from the group to run his hands over dusty pink tourmaline that falls around them from the ceiling, he can’t shake the thought away— the thought that Kravitz being _here_ just feels right. He doesn’t know how to explain why apart from vague memories of and pink falling in flakes from dreadlocks and black feathers adorned in gold.

“Yeah, that made my tummy upset.” Magnus turns to Merle, who’s more invested in the crystallized technology than checking the physical well-being of his friends. You know, like a _cleric_ should? “Is that supposed to happen?”

No one responds to Magnus. Because, of course, to Taako the answer is simple— Magnus isn't built or trained to be accustomed to the natural flow of magic that makes teleporting a walk in the park for other spell-users. Just because he can’t see that doesn’t mean Taako has to explain it to him. 

So, as he said. The natural flow of magic continues throughout the world. Unless something… _wrong_ disrupts it. Something that wasn’t intended to exist in the world, intended to simply be with magic intended for use by living beings.

When the floor starts to shake and crystals shift from the floor, stacking slowly to form a pink crystalline monster, Taako thinks that the flow of magic got pumped with steroids, to an extent. Which, for him, is like a gut punch and that deep-rooted sensation of hearing someone recount how they got their skin ripped out after a piercing snagged and pulled with all it had. He can feel his limbs cemented into place by the part of him that just screams _wrong_ , this is _wrong_ , this shouldn’t exist, this shouldn’t be, something went _wrong_ , and all he can do to get away from it is run.

But he can’t. He knows that he should, but that doesn't do much of anything. Merle yells something at him. Magnus cups a hand around his mouth and shouts. Cold sweat rolls down Taako’s neck. His hands are trembling, but they don’t move past his sides, and his legs are shifting without him knowing and his head is swimming and--

And a knife hits the monster right between the eyes. It doesn’t do anything, because it exists beyond this form, because it isn’t a form its a concept, a residue, an example, an _accident_. But it’s enough to shake Taako into action. “Hot _shit_ !” He yells, following Merle out through one of the doors, Magnus following behind and throwing an endless amount of knives at the rock monster. “What’s that thing _made_ of? Nightmares?”

Merle looks over his shoulder, frantically flipping through his X-treme Teen Bible™, his footing still sure in comparison to Taako’s stumbling, a calm radiating from him in a protective shield. “It’s celestial in origins, but it's probably narcotic energy keeping it together,” he says, nonplussed, “Something happened here, brought it into the world. Magnus! Stop stabbing the damn thing, it won’t do anything!”

“Stabbing’s the only thing I’m good at, fuck you old man!” A knife bounces off the monster and misses Taako’s helmet by an inch. This is the only thing that keeps Magnus from throwing all the rest of his knives at the damned creature, face immediately contorting into regret when Taako whirls around to glare at him, backpedaling and slowing with Merle, who raises his covered wooden arm to the sky. Time stills, as the calm wraps around Taako, releasing the tension and easing the sick feeling in his gut. 

The flowers in his beard perk up as he brings his finger down and, unblinking in the face of the charging crystal monster, announces— “I cast banishment.”

Time warps around the crystalline monster, folding it into itself and leaving nothing but a cloud of sparkling pink dust in its place.

And Taako can breathe again. He takes in gulping breaths, fogging up the glass of his helmet. “Good job, old man,” Magnus says, clapping Merle on the shoulder while Taako bends over and places his hands on his knees to stop the room from spinning. “Taako? You good?”

“Just— _fuck —_ gimme a second— shit I’m gonna barf in this stupid fucking helmet Lucas is so shitty at designing these things—” Two hands feebly pat on his back, one significantly higher than the other and carrying more intent to burp him than comfort him. When the room stops spinning, he finds that a layer of sweat had formed on his face, rolling down his jaw. “Okay, alright, we’re good. Can we _please_ go get Miller’s stupid fucking mirror and this dumb fucking plant before another one of these things comes and kills us?”

That, at least, all three of them agree on. They find Lucas’s quarters without much difficult; the signs were still intact, even if slowly turning to pink crystal (“Tourmaline,” Magnus said, rather unhelpfully because who the hell needed to know what type of rock it was?) And, although the pink tourmaline covered nearly every broken inch of the lab, the airlock to Lucas’s quarters clicked and slid open without much difficulty. They track powdered crystal in after them, so they figured it would eat away at what was left untouched soon enough, but Taako doesn't really care much about that. Instead, he walks over to a desk covered in crystals, all perfect circles, and blinks down at the space where something once was. He thinks if he looks at it right, he can see the outline of it, but when he goes to touch it nothing’s there but layers of dust. 

“This is… this is weird, right?” He says, to no one in particular. Magnus is staring into a full-length sapphire mirror, brows furrowed. There’s movement on the other side of the mirror, flashes of multi-colored light and a brief flicker of a skeleton with golden eyes and a black feathered cloak, pressing a bony hand to the surface. Merle tries to grab at a book on the floor, but it passes right through him. “Like I’m not the only one half expecting someone to come through and tell us that we’re dead and have been for weeks?”

“I was thinking more of a ‘nothing is real’ crisis, but yours works too,” Magnus says, tapping on the mirror with a knuckle. The lights flare on the other end. “We should probably get out of here like right now though.”

Taako, of course, was already halfway out the door by the time Magnus made any such suggestion, headed towards a building marked as ‘test lab 3– personnel only’, which, there's a _lot_ more crystal there so he probably shouldn’t be headed there to look for a fucking plant but the night’s still young and Taako isn’t really in control of his feet so he’s just cruising on autopilot, homies.

The lab is trashed, but he was expecting that. There’s tourmaline sprouted from the inside of a computer, glass is broken across the floor and desks, a robot is seemingly crushed under what used to be a desk. There’s a woman, in the center of the room, poised like she’s protecting someone from an explosion, head ducked and shoulders hunched. But there are green tubes, with tourmaline flakes stuck in a cycle of enveloping the specimen inside and receding to the point of entrance. Like the compact, if he looks at them just so, he would be able to tell that they’re already covered in the tourmaline, transmuted into the rock itself by the powers that be.

He’s almost considering cracking open a specimen tube while Magnus mentions Maureen beefing it to the three of them but no one's listening, halfway convinced he should go get a look at them when the doors they’d just come through swinging open and a chill settles over the room. There’s a flurry of magic from Taako’s wand that’s quick, reactionary. He doesn’t feel the same way he did with the tourmaline monster in the room, but he feels like whatever’s just entered the room with them isn’t fully mortal, or… one of them, in this place. It’s tricky, discerning feelings in this lab. Once the debris from his missed magic missiles clears, though, Taako finds himself taking pause, even though some part of him screams that the sight greeting him was as natural as breathing.

Standing in front of them without a null suit, still wearing the same three-piece suit with a floral tie and raven-feathered cloak from earlier and looking rather like a deer in the headlights, is—

“What the fuck, _Kravitz_?” Taako can’t wrap his head around him being _here_ , and why seeing him without a helmet or the same suit is off-putting for him in a way he can’t place because he doesn’t know what would happen if you didn’t wear one here. Well, he does, but he’s trying not to look at Maureen’s crystallized corpse right now. “What— you— Why are you even _here_?”

Kravitz, currently in the middle of wiping smoke off of his glasses now that there’s no danger and holding the throwing knife that Taako’s pretty sure hit him in the shoulder but he doesn’t seem to be bleeding— what the fuck— tenses. “How do you know my name?” He asks, brows so tightly knit Taako’s certain it would leave an impression in his forehead. 

Which, subsequently, is how Taako figures out what Istus’s weird fucking riddle meant. He’d dismissed it at the time, figured it meant that Kravitz had lost track of time while working, but nope! The son of a bitch was literally lost to time, and so were they, a whole fucking week later! What the fuck! Who makes these rules! 

Well, the bright side is Taako gets to look into Kravitz’s dreamy golden eyes and admire those sharp cheekbones a little while longer, _and_ get Lucas’s compact back, which, score. Got to help him get a bit of tourmaline which wasn’t a bad idea, actually, because he wanted a crack at the composition of this bad boy too. Or he just wanted some weird jewelry, Taako isn’t one to judge. 

He pocketed a misshapen shard from the pile left behind after Kravitz picked the most aesthetically pleasing of the bunch. No one even batted an eye at him as he swooped down to grab it, too engrossed with their varying tasks.

The day would’ve been perfect if he was able to spend just a little more time with Kravitz. You know, learn his whole life story and whatnot, the usual. But Taako knows he met him, hurried, disoriented, and out of breath so really, he should’ve expected the fucking crystal monster to come back.

He’d still spend hours near that fucking abomination if it meant he’d be able to find an excuse to have Kravitz half-carry him around. Which like, okay. So he's touch starved and Kravitz is pretty and doesn't seem to have much of an evil bone in his body, sue him.

So Kravitz bought them some time, and they lingered long enough to hear a wretched yell, enchanting and horrifying all at once, and making Taako’s ears ring from just barely missing his Shatter’s range. They rush past corpses turned to crystal, adventurers who didn’t know what they were doing just like them but they are better, they will be better, they have to be better—

Merle stops dead in his tracks in a room meant to be a plant nursery. There’s a crystallized dwarf, and they know it’s Boyland, but no one says anything about it because they shouldn’t know what happened to him, in all honesty— it was a secret meant to be kept tight to Carey and Killian’s chests after the night they came back trembling and gripping one another like lifelines. 

They stop only because, in the center of the nursery, amongst plants of dying species and those of scientific uses alike, is a crystalline corpse. It’s not the corpse itself that leaves them frozen like idiots; They don’t know her name, and can’t read the name tag attached to her breast pocket. But she’s hunched, just like Maureen, over a clump of succulents. Merle helpfully informs them that it’s a zwartkop, but Taako can’t see past how dark they are, hunched down and kept safe under this unnamed scientist’s protection. They’re shaped like flowers, sure, that’s cute, but they’re a pitch-black against a bright pink. Surviving in the one place where survivors shouldn’t exist. It would be poetic if he wasn't staring blankly at the succulent trying to figure out why the scene feels so familiar to him.

He holds it tight against his chest in the only pot they could find that wasn’t smashed as they find their way out of the entrance to the lab and past the point where tourmaline poisons the land, headed straight for the battlewagon when he sees Lup waving out of the window. Hurley and Sloane must’ve let her borrow it because Istus _above_ he can't even see Neverwinter in the distance. Barry’s standing as close to the tourmaline as he can without touching it, Davenport’s keeping a close eye on him, and Lucretia’s reading a book on the roof. Lucas is, thankfully, nowhere to be seen.

“Met Kravitz,” Taako says by way of greeting, buckling himself into the seat behind Lup’s. Lucretia sits behind him with Davenport to her right. His helmet is in the trunk with Dumb and Dumber’s, his null suit is unzipped and the sleeves tied around his hips.

“What the hell do you mean ‘met Kravitz’? I thought you already knew him?”

“Time isn’t real in that lab. He’s like, a week in the past? So he’s meeting me right now, technically? I don’t think too long and hard about time magic.” Resting his head on what space is left to the side of the driver’s seat, he pokes the back of Lup’s ear until it twitches hard enough to slap him away. “He also wasn’t wearing a null suit so, that was weird since anyone we saw not wearing one was all crystal-y. What’d you losers do today?” The sun’s already halfway through setting on the horizon. He doesn’t want to think about how long they’d been gone, especially considering he hasn’t eaten all day, technically. Fuck, technicalities suck major balls.

“Cleaned my part of the lab,” Lup says, glaring at him in the rearview mirror. “Unlike _someone_.”

“I’ll get to it eventually, get off my dick. Barry?”

“I slept until two.”

“Sick. Luce?”

“I got called into the LAH to cover Varali’s shift,” she says, with a long-suffering sigh. “I have an article due tomorrow that I haven’t started on.”

Taako twists his head to get a good look at her and the bags under her eyes. He wanted to just go home and crash out, maybe see how Angus was doing in school, but... “Come back to our place, I’ll help you with it.” She immediately brightens, shoulders rising and something like a smile forming across her lips. “ _Don’t_ thank me, I’m only doing it because you being all dejected is ruining my groove.”

“And what did _you_ do, Cap’nport?” Magnus says, nudging Davenport with a finger. 

“Don’t call me that,” he says immediately. Then, “Went to the gym, tried to get Hurley and Sloane to trust me enough to drive their battlewagon here, but no dice. Made a cake. And no, there isn’t any left. Noelle, Carey, and Killian invited themselves over and ate it all.” The sigh that runs through the car is nearly painful— if there was anything they knew in their years of being a weird miss-match of people that could vaguely be called a family, it was that Davenport made some mean cakes.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Taako says with feeling after ten minutes of comfortable silence, the overwhelming urge to have a mental breakdown overcoming him, “I have a seven A.M class tomorrow! Lup—”

“—Go to my nine A.M class for bond theory and you’ve got yourself a deal, babe.”

“Oh hell yeah I can do that— sorry, Davenport,” Taako says without turning around, in the way that puts on full display how not sorry he is. He doesn’t respond, simply letting out a huff of a sigh and muttering about cheating.

The drive back is quiet, but not silent. Merle whispers with Lucretia about the book she’s reading; something he recommended her. Magnus pulls up his stone and texts Julia, and Taako knows it’s Julia because he’s smiling from ear to ear and occasionally chuckles, everything about him gooey and in love which is just disgusting, ew, whatever. Lup tells Taako about what she’d figured out about bond theory and how she thinks she can make tethers for when she and Barry die, and Barry leans over to give his own theories on the matters because they’re fucking nerds. Taako tells them that since Lucretia’s coming over they should make that Alaskan salmon that’s been in the freezer for fuck knows how long. 

When the conversation shifts elsewhere, and there’s only the quiet rumble of the arcane core and passing villages and cities in the distance, Taako leans back in his chair and looks to the setting sun. He doesn’t think about Kravitz again, not then, but he thinks about the wrongness that came with him, and how he didn’t feel it outside of the lab, and what the note on Istus’s list tells him.

Fate, death, and time in one place, existing in disharmony. Well, he figures the crystals were Istus’s doing, if anything, because she’s sort of got an aesthetic going, and the three of them were there. Time was pretty obvious, and death was immortalized in tourmaline.

Taako thinks about what it means for a living being to stay so untouched by the tourmaline that it could shake off your shoulders without ever harming your skin.

Taako thinks.

But he doesn’t like where it leads him.

Often, he never did.

~~_2\. The last living plant at the crossing of fate, death, and time._ ~~

_[there's a doodle of a raven perched in the rubble Test Lab three, looking straight ahead at the reader underneath it.]_

**⋆✧⋆**

The Davy Lamp was busy more often than not. Kravitz can understand the appeal, in all honesty— the food was excellent, their coffee was never burnt, and June would rather die than let someone get a hot chocolate that wasn’t rich, creamy, and topped with a tower of whipped cream. The atmosphere could never be beat, either. Oil lamps hung from the ceiling and remained perched on Burnside original tables; even the bar and the stools bolted to the floor had been ripped apart to be given wooden counterparts, rich and intricately carved. Kravitz likes the atmosphere the most, he thinks. It always made him feel like he was a rest stop for an old western protagonist to come walking in one day, and sometimes when Ren took his tables from him and shoved him in the direction to the piano he couldn’t help but feel like he was a witness to the mundane in his day-to-day life, bringing music and joy to the world in what way he could. 

Playing on the piano for all these years, he felt like he was waiting, going through the mundane, until the next fight could start (there always was one, but Ren dealt with them soon enough anyway), or until the day a rag-tag group of outlaws would come striding in, hands-on their gun holsters and hats brought low over their faces.

And yet, when the day came, Kravitz wasn’t playing the piano. “Reckon today’s gonna be a good day for hot drinks,” June says from behind him, slamming a fist on their espresso machine until it spurts to life. He hums in response, staring blankly out the window ahead of him, to the pouring rain that blocks the sun in the horizon. He only snaps out of his reverie when she slams the cup of coffee onto his tray, perfectly stacked for a family of three at table seven. The child is scribbling on the paper kid’s menu, kicking their legs back and forth with idle energy. June’s hand comes to rest on his arm, a wisdom beyond her years behind the worried look she gives him. “You doin’ alright, Kravitz?”

“Yeah,” he says, mind still idling, still waiting for something, though he can’t fathom what. “Yeah. I just… realized I left my umbrella at home, is all. Not looking forward to that walk.”

“If you say so. Now go on, get the family their food, they must be starving like a pig in winter.”

“No one says that!” He calls over his shoulder, rounding out from the bar and making his way to table seven. Distantly a bell rings once, twice, girls giggling amongst each other, the shifting of several umbrellas, quiet and whispered conversation. Roswell’s voice chirps out above them all, their form perched by the menus and wearing both a comically tiny apron and a comically large name tag. He wishes table seven a good meal, stops to hear table eight ask for another spoon and could they maybe have some butter? To which he says of course, and is back in under a minute because no matter how busy the Davy Lamp might get, people stay more for the atmosphere and company than the food. 

Roswell flutters over June’s head and past Kravitz’s ear “Table eleven’s yours,” they say, rounding the heads of the diners and back to their perch. Kravitz lets out a huff, dusting his hands off on his apron. He figured he’d play a song or two after table seven but he supposes that wasn’t in Lady Istus’s plans for him today. So, pulling his notepad from his pocket, he approaches table eleven with what he hopes is a good mimicry of a genuine smile.

Except, as he approaches the table, his smile turns genuine. “No, no, that’s dumb, Barry. Look, you have to change the runes in the circle like this—” head hunched, fingers covered in rings of crystals and gemstones all stacked on top of one another, scribbling with a crayon. He pushes it back to the man sitting across from him and the woman wearing the same look of intense concentration. They even worry their lower lip in the same manner. “—And then you change the incantation to be like—”

Taako gets halfway through explaining the spoken incantation of what Kravitz thinks is a transmutation spell before he stalls, looking up from the napkin diagram he created and staring blankly at him. He doesn’t say anything, and the woman that he can assume is his sister audibly kicks him under the table. “Welcome to the Davy Lamp,” Kravitz says, biting his cheek to keep a laugh at bay, “My name is Kravitz and I’ll be your server tonight. Can I get y’all started with any drinks?”

“Okay, no, this is bullshit,” Taako says, pointing his crayon at Kravitz accusingly, “You used up your fake accent cards in literally one fucking day, don’t you dare pull that yeehaw shit on us.”

“What do you reckon, sir? I’ve always sounded like this. Ain’t like I can change accents at will and besides, I can’t seem to recall ever meeting you aside from now.” He turns his attention to Taako’s sister and the human man next to her, and takes their order (A Shirley temple and a hot chocolate respectively), before turning back to Taako, who’s taken to glaring at the table with squinted eyes. His sister kicks his shin again.

“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” He asks with tone and posture holding the striking image of a drenched cat because he was, after all, still thoroughly wet from the rain. Kravitz breaks down into unfitting giggles, barely missing the crayon thrown at him when he goes to adjust his glasses. “You fucking suck, man! Shit! Get me an iced tea, fantasy Jesus christ I can’t believe you’re such a nerd.”

Kravitz’s laughter dies down long enough for him to take down Taako’s order, and he flashes the table a smile. “I’ll be right back with your drinks, please don’t do anything illegal or I’ll have to kick you out,” he says, spinning around and picking up the pace to the kitchen. He hands the drink order to June wordlessly, pushing the swinging doors open. To the form half-obscured by a shelf and cutting vegetables with a barely-contained frustration, “Ren, holy _shit_.”

“What?” She asks, head poking out around a corner and watching him speedwalk over like a bat out of hell. “Some human lady ask to see the manager? I don’t know what to tell them other than we ain’t got one but they can’t take no for an answer—” 

“Taako’s here.” She drops her knife without another word, charging past him and to the door. Together they peer through at table eleven, watching Taako as he continues his explanation from earlier, with the same crayon. The human man says something in response that causes both of the elves to shake their head, Taako’s sister placing a hand on the arms he folded on the table and saying something else. “I didn’t think they’d come here, you know? And now that he’s here I don’t rightly know what to do because he’s just right there but, you know, I’m his server and you’re in the kitchen so you can’t talk to him or his sister unless they ask for you.” 

Ren groans, hitting her head on the doorframe. “Fuck, you’re right. I just have to impress him with my cookin’ I reckon.” Leaning against the nearest metal appliance, she breaks out into a knowing smile. “You pull out that awful accent on them?”

He fixes her with a look that sends her into a peal of disruptive laughter because listen, he’s not just going to look at Taako and what's presumably his family and not make a fool of himself and Taako in the process. It’s almost impossible not to, considering what happened the last time someone he knew visited the Davy Lamp. “Alright, alright, so here’s the plan. You just keep being their server and we’ll make sure they get the best experience, hands down guarantee. You get to talk to them, maybe mention my name and if he’s interested enough he might call me out, and we don’t stop till the cows come home, got it?”

Which, in hindsight, wasn’t their best plan, but Ren started a whole cooking career because of this dude and Kravitz is gay and weak so he agreed, leaving the kitchen to bring out their drink. June was across the diner by the time he did get out, though, talking to a problem table Cassidy had gotten stuck with, so no dice on thanking her.

He drops off the check for table eight on his way to Taako’s table but doesn’t stick around long enough to chat.

He’s a man on a mission, after all. 

Taako’s sister is surprisingly the first of the three to speak, leaning across the table once the drinks were handed out. “Hi, I’m Lup,” she says, reaching a hand out to shake his and flashing a bright, wicked grin. She gestures to the human man next to her, “this is Barry. We’ve heard a lot about you, Kravitz.”

Kravitz wished he’d been smoother at the moment, maybe a little bit suave to impress them, but instead his cheeks grow impossibly hot and he manages to say, “Well, I hope they weren’t all bad,” without stuttering through the whole damn thing. Taako, similarly flustered and his cheeks tinted a dark blue, slaps his sister’s arm. 

“I think you’re the first person Taako hasn’t trash-talked immediately after meeting them,” says Barry, adjusting his glasses at nearly the same time as Kravitz. “Which is saying something because I think he dunked on a kid we know?”

“I didn’t trash talk him,” Taako interjects, “Angus just didn’t know how to dish what he was serving, so I was giving him some criticism.”

“You don’t give an eleven-year-old criticism, Taako.”

“He’s the world’s greatest detective! He’s solved murder cases! He can handle it!”

Ignoring the fact that they A, “know a kid” and B, he’s supposedly a detective that has the qualifications to solve murder mysteries or whatever the hell, Kravitz decides to redirect the conversation by saying, “Did you find whatever you were at Miller Labs for?”

“Oh, yeah, you got us enough time to put enough distance between us, so we got it. Made Lucas pay me five gold to get his dumb mirror back, too. Sit, wait, how’d you even get out of the lab?”

Kravitz doesn’t really know how to rephrase ‘my goddess opened a portal and I did a sick slide under the crystal monster that wanted to kill every living thing through it’, so he thinks back to two weeks ago, and smiles placidly. “There were two doors, Taako. Also, you run quickly when you’re all out of sick days to take to recover from a rock monster punch to the gut. I think Ren would’ve killed me if I had to miss another day of work.”

“Oh, yeah, days like that are the pits,” Taako says like it’s just another Tuesday. Lup, on the other hand, perks up by the end of his bullshit explanation of how a normal bard would’ve gotten out of that deadly encounter.

“Wait, hold up, Kravitz, did you say Ren?” She asks, leaning across Barry to get closer to him. Table eight holds their check out to him, which he takes without a second thought. Taako shows no signs of recognition, slurping obnoxiously from his iced tea and raising a tediously plucked brow at her. “Taaks, she was that kid that was in our cooking class!”

A spark ignites in Taako, and he’s leaning across the table to Lup whether he notices it or not, crayon still in hand. It's the closest thing to a tell Kravitz has ever seen from him. “Holy shit! Wasn’t she the one that threw a ham sandwich and yelled out ‘fuck yeah, revolution' then set her chair on fire?” She nods vigorously, and both twins turn to Kravitz. “You know her? What’s she up to?”

“Well, right now I think she’s in the middle of making a pot pie in the kitchen—”

“—No _fucking_ way. Man, small world, isn't it?” Taako reclines and throws his arm over the back of his chair. Kravitz already has his notepad out, in anticipation for whatever order he’s going to make now that he knows Ren’s behind it. “You think the Jambalaya is good, stud?”

He snorts, glancing up from the notepad. It's a ridiculous notion to him, that Ren's food can be considered anything under 'superb'. “We wouldn’t have put it on the menu if Ren couldn’t blow it out of the park, Taako.”

And that was that. Kravitz didn’t stay past delivering their food and watching them take their first bites, Lup and Taako immediately yelling for Ren. He’d slapped the last few checks from his tables at the cash register in front of June, and told her that he was playing that damn piano tonight if it killed him. At some point, Barry had left Ren and the twins to chat and Paloma had wandered into the kitchen to take over the food, despite her technically not being allowed back there, and had sat in an armchair next to the piano. He’d pulled a notebook from his bookbag, full of anatomy and organ labelings next to uses Kravitz couldn’t read. “Necromancy?” He asks, as casually as he could, Johann’s sheet music shifting without him having to reach up to flip it. 

“Uh… yeah,” Barry says, glancing up briefly from his work. “It’s fascinating and there are so many ways to use it, so.” He shrugs lamely.

“The theory is really something,” he says, leaning over to get an upside-down glance at the mess of notes he has next to a diagram of elf anatomy. “I would’ve gone into it myself if I hadn’t fallen in love with music, and, well, my Queen doesn’t like the grittier bits of necromancy. Doesn’t sit right with her.”

Something shifts in Barry, at the mentioning of the Raven Queen. His relaxed posture becomes tense, shoulders raised and hand tightening around his charcoal pencil. Kravitz figures it would’ve snapped if he’d been any stronger. “That so?” He asks, doing a good job to cover any tells he would’ve had given away in his voice. 

Kravitz has a thought that mostly consists of ' _I should tell my Queen about him'_ , which is definitely not a normal thought for him to have because he's one, not a snitch and two, never had inclinations to tell the Raven Queen more than she asked for up until this point.

But he won’t, and he doesn’t, because he seems nice and, well... he's Taako's family. Little as they've met, he considers him a weird sort of friend. Instead, he smiles warmly, tries to show no hard feelings, and focuses back on the keys.

After all, it isn’t his job right now to judge who can do what with the laws of death.

The three of them leave after fifteen minutes of idle talk. Taako hands over the check without blinking and flirts a bit probably says something about his hands and Lup forks over a small number of coins to Ren as a tip. Barry apologizes for it not being more, mumbles to himself about rent, and the three of them take off in a whirlwind of activity. 

“Wow,” Ren says, falling next to Kravitz on the bench, “uh, that happened.”

“It did,” he says, in the calmest voice he can manage. “I think Barry’s done death crimes though so. That’s going to suck.”

Ren looks over the check he’d set down and waves it in front of his face with a small smile, deciding that they weren't going to talk about Barry's death crimes on the clock, which he figured was valid enough. “You got his frequency,” she says, stilling her hand long enough for him to squint at the note at the very bottom of the check, written in messy, sprawling writing.

_XXX-XXX-X_

_Don’t be a stranger, Bones._

_-T_

Heart pounding and blood rising to his face, an emotion without a name seizing his very being, a mix of joy, shame, and purpose all wrapped in one messy package, this is, of course, when a raven appears above the piano. Taako’s frequency and Ren are frozen in his face, the Davy Lamp frozen in muted colors, and his Queen staring down at him with her judgmental golden gaze.

“ _My child,_ ” she says, “ _Consider yourself on break._ ”

And then the Davy Lamp vanishes into a black abyss that envelops him, tangible like fog. “Goodie,” he says to the nothingness, and his Queen laughs all around him, sounding like thousands of ravens cawing at once. They echo all around him, even as her voice turns solemn.

“ _And we’re going to… have to have a chat soon, but I suppose you figured such.”_

He doesn’t reply to her, instead of letting his environment fade back in, entirely too bright. She knows what he would have said regardless. He doesn’t know how, exactly, he figures this, other than deep-rooted confidence that runs further than what he can comprehend while alive.

Thankfully, the Raven Queen deposits him smack-dab in the middle of a bright white room, with hand-knitted articles of clothing piled to the ceiling around him, the darkness of the abyss drifting until it forms solid around his shoulders and draping against the floor, feathers brushing against his jaw and the list back in his left hand.

He really should ask her how she keeps doing that. 

Finding Istus’s spare knitting needles and is… entirely uneventful. He spends it half-expecting Taako, Magnus, and Merle to come bursting through the door ready to kick his ass, half-expecting Istus herself to find him. Instead, he digs through piles upon piles of sweaters and scarfs listening to the muffled conversation from the distinctly terrifying voice of his Queen and a soft-spoken Istus that brings comfort to him that he hasn’t felt in years.

No raven forms to take him home through another portal. Instead, two quiet knocks sound at the elegant ivory door leading out of the room, and he pushes it open far enough to squeeze through. He doesn't check to see if it was her or not, a feeling deep in his chest giving him the permanent reassurance that she would always come for him, without any solid evidence to support it. He hands the needles over to the Raven Queen as they walk down the halls of a combination of fancy palaces, cottage homes, dirt roads, and industrial warehouses. 

It’s only when he hears Istus sigh from a room that he cannot see but can hear as if it was only a wall separating him from seeing her, and say, “No, Taako, there’s no fine print that I just didn't tell you about. I’m not hiding anything from you in _that_ regard, at least. Magnus, that’s not even close to what I was trying to tell you all to find— oh lord _me_.”

And Kravitz suddenly has his blinders removed, his head whipping to his Queen who doesn’t even react to hearing her lover speaking of notes and mortal emissaries. He doesn’t know how this understanding comes to him, exactly, just that it’s something he’s always known for reasons kept from him that he simply didn’t know enough to parse.

Because of _course_ they’re Emissaries of Istus. It just feels natural for him to think about it like it's something he's known his entire life, even though he just learned this like, three seconds ago tops.

“Wha—?” he says, the simplicity of his acceptance of them being Emissaries more confusing than the revelation itself. His queen fixes him with a golden-eyed stare.

“I don’t rather like hiding information from you nearly as much as my Istus loves throwing that poor lot in for a loop, You would have known by the night's end regardless. ” She pats his shoulder with a clawed hand. 

Kravitz could grill her for more information on what they were doing for her, whether or not Taako knew what Kravitz was (he guessed not but he never shows his emotions on his sleeve as Kravitz does), and why they kept running into one another even outside of their Emissary jobs, but, well. He doesn’t find it in him to care about superficial stuff like that. Instead, he turns away from his Queen, hands folded behind his back and eyes set on the exit from Istus’s realm, a deep blue now, and asks,

“When will I be called to you next?”

Her smile is kind, proud, and terrifying all at once. “I'll be coming for you next Saturday. You’re doing excellent at your job, Kravitz. I did well in choosing you.” She stops in front of the portal, the feathers dangling from intricate braids sucked towards the energy of her realm whether she likes it or not. “We’ll be having that talk of ours in a month from now, on the dot. so mark your calendar, my dear boy.”

Kravitz ignores the feeling of dread in his stomach, nods, and steps through the portal with her.

Only to be back in the Davy Lamp, with Ren still holding the check in front of his face and his hands pressing keys with disharmony that has her startling. “You alright, Kravitz?” She asks, placing a hand on his hunched shoulders, only pulling away when he hurriedly pulls his Stone from his pocket and punches in Taako’s frequency.

“Sorry,” he says, giving her what he hopes is an apologetic look because he does feel bad, but also that was a lot to happen in like thirty minutes that took less than a second in the real world and he doesn’t feel like things are real right now so forgive him for being a little out of tune. “My Queen just sent me on another mission. I got it, learned some stuff, stuff I didn’t want to learn, but I did anyway so I’m going to drink a whole bottle of wine tonight.” 

“...Alright,” she says, still looking just a little bit confused but it seems like she got real cool with a lot of shit pretty quickly the moment he came out with ‘my Queen’, so that’s nice. He has nice friends. “You want me to call Johann and we can just have a night in? You can tell us a little bit more about what the fuck’s going up with you so we can help unpack it, I guess?”

He smiles, briefly, but it doesn’t last once he turns back to his stone. “Yeah, that’d be great. Thank you, Ren.”

In all honesty, Kravitz doesn’t know what to send to Taako. ‘Hey, just found out we’re both working for goddesses that are dating and that makes things a little bit weird but I’d like to get to know you better?’ is too blunt, ‘So I’m an Emissary of The Raven Queen and I think your brother-in-law did death crimes so that blows a bit’ is just plain assuming. 

So he takes a page out of his Queen’s book and decides that unless any of the three of Istus’s Emissaries mention that they're in the same career field, he’ll never bring it up.

_You _

_This is Kravitz._

_Taako_

_This is eagle two, copy_

_You_

_That was awful._

_Taako_

_Thank you, I'm trying my hardest to make this the worst experience of your life._

_So like, I figured we're probably going to keep meeting again—_

Kravitz snorts. 'Probably' is a severe understatement, but he won’t burst his bubble.

_—And it kinda makes sense that we might as well know like, something about each other if that's gonna be the case._

_First off where the FUCK did you learn how to play the piano I would've cried if Lup wasn't five seconds from making fun of me_

Ren's cheek rests on Kravitz's shoulder, eyes skimming their texts with vague interest. "Man, he's flirting with you hardcore, huh?"

Kravitz fiddles with his sleeve, glancing up at her and coughing awkwardly. "Uh. A bit." Ren leans her head forward, eyes narrowing.

"'That uniform does wonders for your figure, stud'? Okay, he should just say he thinks your ass looks great in our work pants and the whole quarter-unbuttoned flannel and suspenders deal lets the world know you've got collarbones chiseled by the gods, but whatever," she says, laughing when Kravitz shoves her with his shoulder. "You gonna flirt back or what?"

He doesn't respond to her and doesn't give her a look. If he wants to flirt, he will, but the point is that he never saw himself as someone being able to flirt in the same way as everyone else—from him it always felt impersonal. So he deals in the truths of soft-spoken words, and confessions at odd hours of the night. Well, he used to deal in all that, once long ago. And he would if someone ever gave him a chance to make something beyond two months of a relationship he thinks is going somewhere, only to be dropped at the tip of a hat. So, instead, he continues to tell Taako about his side-gig as a conductor for a small-time orchestra. He tells him about Johann and how the two of them have been working to get their names out into the world because Johann doesn't want to die forgotten, but Kravitz wants to die knowing that he did something, that he made an impact on at least one person. Taako passingly mentions maybe getting Lup and Barry to join their orchestra if they were taking applications, and a half-promise of attending one of his performances, if he got in for free. Taako tells him that he wants to teach transmutation, not cooking despite whatever rumors Ren's spread about him, because transmutation can change lives, and he doesn't specify, but Kravitz figures he meant that he wasn't really talking about the general public.

Kravitz deals in truths, so he tells Taako that he'd love to have him in the audience, even if he didn't often like orchestras because the thought that he'd even come at all was enough to inspire symphonies. Ren smiles warmly and tells him that that's what she meant by flirting before getting up and returning to the kitchen. 

Taako deals in half-truths and tells Kravitz that he'd only be going because it's free and not to support him, because if he wanted to support someone he would've supported Johann, duh. In Davenport's empty classroom, Lup peers over his shoulder at his texts as they pour over how bonds can be interwoven into magic, chalk scraping against the board as he writes and writes without looking up from his stone. She doesn't say anything to him, but she lets out a low breath and returns her focus to the diagram of magic circles, spell components, and the bonds connecting all of them inexplicably.

Kravitz deals in truths like his goddess deals in patience, her hands busy with threads made of bonds pulled from her chest that weave together like they were meant to be one, and where his truths start and her patience ends none can tell, until her hands become his hands and Istus's needles are a quill with ink smudged against dark skin and the tapestry is a symphony that isn't meant for the world to hear, but a few who will carry it with them their whole lives, and tell their children about when years pass. 

And so, Kravitz first starts his symphony with the beginnings of a muse.

~~**_2\. The needles of fate, so I may fashion our winding tapestry._ ** ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why do the Kravitz scenes always end up being so long lmao it would've gone on forever if I didn't want to finish the chapter before I went to sleep,,,, Ig that's just the effects of chugging Loving Kravitz juice,,, Also?? There's more symbolism in this fic than I was planning but when you center an entire fic around two goddesses finding items that are personal to their relationship to propose to each other you really just go batshit crazy, huh?
> 
> Follow me on Tumblr @Hekaerge-Athenias and IG @Athenias._ !
> 
> Items in Istus's/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread


	3. Magic Mirrors Suck But You're Okay, I guess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You’ll have to head to the dumpster behind the fantasy Dollar Tree to get to where I need you.”
> 
> “Wha—”
> 
> “Everyone knows that there’s a portal behind the Dollar Tree,” says Lup, Taako, and Merle in deadpan unison before Magnus can finish his question. “Duh.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Possible TWs; Just to be safe, this chapter goes pretty deep on aspects of my interpretation of Taako as well as the situation revolving around Kravitz, and even if they might not be triggering at all, I'd rather be safe than sorry.
> 
> Minor self-harm which begins at "Taako sits at the edge of his window..." ends at "You ever consider I might be sleeping?", but there are brief mentionings of what he did and how he feels throughout the chapter. They're all pretty vague. 
> 
> Minor gore that begins at "his bloodied..." and ends at "I don't know if I have my heart, in these dreams."

Taako sits at the edge of his window, pants shifting as biting cold pierces through the fabric and his bare torso. He holds a candle in one hand while the other trembles, magic cupping the flame from the wind like a third hand. His skin burns as he stares blankly at it, taken, as he typically is, with the thought of brushing his palm onto the fire until he burns. There's no way for him to properly put into words, into writing, the reason why he does this. It was just something he'd done as a child on impulse and in the dead of night as an adult, cheeks stained with tears long dried up in the wind and a void in his chest, suffocating his throat. His shaking hand hovers dangerously close to the fire already, palm itching.

His stone of farspeech buzzes on the desk behind him right as the candlewick touches his skin. Hand throbbing and covered in dripping wax, he leans back far enough to grab his stone without having to leave his window. The candle blows out the moment he reaches for it, the second his mind wanders anywhere but the flickering flame and the spell shielding it. The candle replaces his stone in a swift few seconds. The skin on his hand feels too warm against the night cold, now.

“You ever consider that I might be sleeping?” He asks the stone, balancing it on his thigh. There’s a laugh on the other end, rich like honey and soothing in a way that Istus’s never could be. If he didn’t know that gods had laughs that settled dread into your stomach, he would have said that a god of music had called him. Yet, the laugh does little more than bring a flicker of heat to his cheeks.

“Well, I did, but a little bird told me that the whole block can see your bright yellow pants, dark as the night be,” Kravitz says, voice sickeningly fond. This tone of his voice often went unmentioned, ever since the last time Taako brought it up he was met with five minutes of awkward stuttering. He hums, squinting at the streets below to see if he could spot Kravitz, only to find the roads empty.

“You’d think someone out and about at two in the fucking morning could mind their own business,” He says, wincing at how harsh his words come out. Kravitz chuckles anyway. He’s good for that-- not drawing attention to his bad moods. “Who was it?”

There’s a sound that’s distinct of paper flipping. “June, if you’d believe it. I don’t know why she decided to go to _me_ about it instead of keeping it to herself, but you know how teenagers get.” A pause in the rustles of his papers. “How are you?”

Taako considers himself semi-fluent in seeing through Kravitz’s hesitant questions. ‘How are you’, in this case, roughly translates to ‘Why can’t you sleep tonight?’ He scratches at his stomach.“Been better. You?”

“Nightmares,” says Kravitz, too blunt and a breath of fresh air compared to him dancing around Taako’s wellbeing. “Which is stupid because I don’t even remember what happened, so it’s just… yeah.” His brief burst of righteous anger fizzles out in a split second, the sigh escaping him more exhausted than Taako had ever heard— scratch that— ever _seen_ him.

He coughs awkwardly, hugs his middle with his unburnt hand. “Do you— shit. Krav, do you want to talk about it or something?” Taako’s not good at the whole ‘emotional support’ deal. Hell, he can’t even emotionally support himself, but still. He can’t just hear Kravitz sound like _that_ and not do something. There’s a laugh on the other end, hollow and missing the same sugar-sweet lilt to it as before.

“I shouldn’t. It’s… It’d sound crazy to you.”

“Try me. I got sent to another dimension last month on pure accident, got lost to time and nearly passed out twice because some fucking batshit wild tourmaline monster wanted to rock my shit just two weeks ago! I think I could handle whatever you throw at me, Krav.”

Kravitz sighs, and neither of them speak, not for a long while. Taako gives up on him saying anything by that point, leaning his head on the side of the window and pulling his stone to his ear, and away from falling to its doom six stories below. “There’s this… gap in my memories,” he says, so quiet that Taako nearly misses it. “I haven’t told any of my friends much else other than I think it was necromancers, and that my eyes weren’t always this color.”

“Oh? I thought all humans just popped out with stunning golden eyes.”

Another laugh. Gods, Taako enjoyed his laugh, even if it couldn’t drag the chill from its heart. “I’m trying to be serious here.”

He snorts, bringing a leg to his chest. “Don’t mind me, keep going.”

And so Kravitz tells him. Slowly, quietly, he describes not what he thinks happened to him in that gap, but what his dreams give him. His bloodied hands gripping an intricately carved knife coated in his blood, his chest torn open and empty but his shoulders rising and falling with deep rumbling breaths. He tries to scream, but all that leaves him is a garbled noise, throat full of blood. “I don’t know if I have my heart, in these dreams. And I don’t— Taako, I don’t feel warm. Does that make sense?”

More than anything else. “Yes.” His voice cracks. He looks at his hand, the burn glistening a dark blue and white where he’d scratched a layer of skin off until blood smeared across it. At the time, he thought it was just extra wax stuck to him, and he'd tried to pry it off only to be met with more skin in his fingernails. He still feels empty. Taako reclines back and glares at the stacks of drafts for his thesis. “Hey, what did you do with that cursed fucking Tourmaline from Bitchface Jr.’s lab?”

Kravitz makes a noise caught between a snort and a cough “Bitchface Jr.? Is that what you’re calling him?” He asks. When Taako doesn’t respond, he says, “I was paid to get it for a friend of mine. She has a… vested interest in artifacts like that. Why?”

“Well, let’s just say _theoretically_ someone took a piece home with them and isolated it to figure out how it works? And they wanted to make sure no one else was trying to beat them to the punch?”

“I— Taako, do you know how _dangerous_ that tourmaline is?” Kravitz’s typical amusement melts way to very obvious worry in a flash. Taako ignores the feeling that bubbles in his stomach and begin to climb up his torso.

  
“Yeah, well, you weren’t being hurt by it so how bad can it be? Besides, I’ve got magical powers.” He wiggles his fingers in front of him as if Kravitz were sitting in front of him instead of across Neverwinter.

There’s a thud distinct of someone’s head hitting a desk. “That’s different. _I’m_ different. Just— don’t do anything stupid, yeah?”

“You know I can’t promise you that, even if you’ve got such a handsome face. I’m like, the best person to go to if you want someone to do dumb shit in the name of magic.” He pauses, waiting for laughter that doesn’t come. “Wait, what do you mean you’re different?”

“I— I’ve built up an immunity, you know that. I told you.” Hearing it for the second time doesn’t hold up as well as before though, and he can hear the way Kravitz thinks before he says anything at all, which isn’t unusual but in this case, it’s enough for Taako to notice. And besides, now that he’s known Kravitz long enough, he knows with certainty that he’s a godawful liar. “Hey, what rhymes with ‘desire’?”

Taako takes one last look to the ground far, far below, sighs, and turns himself so that his feet touch his desk. Climbing down, he hisses at the shock of pain that goes up to his arm when his palm touches the corner of the table. “Have you tried ‘perspire’?”

Kravitz snorts violently enough to surprise himself if the frantic coughs are anything to go by. “Holy _shit_ , that’s perfect!” He all but wheezes. Taako finds a smile creeping across his lips as he flips the bathroom light on, shutting the door with the back of his foot. The stone gets put on the porcelain sink while he rummages in the cabinet for the bandages. 

“What are you even _writing_?” Taako slams the bandages down on the opposite counter, tucking hair behind his ear. When Kravitz dissolves into childish giggles, his barely-there smile blossoms into something more. The cold emptiness is gone from his chest, put at bay if only for this moment.

“Okay— fuck, okay— I’m writing this, this sonnet. Don’t laugh, sonnets are good, it’s just that I’m making one to bully Johann. Listen,” Clearing his throat, Kravitz continues with his best Johann impression (which is to say, the worst Johann impression Taako’s heard in his life), “‘Your husky voice and onyx hair fills me with desire; should you speak to me come ‘morrow I will surely perspire’. Gods, it’s so awful.”

After ensuring no wax remained on his palm, Taako lathers the burn with soap he’d haphazardly turned to aloe vera gel no less than two seconds ago. “If your idea of bullying Johann is writing a song making fun of his dumb crush on Avi, I’d hate to see what you’d write about me.” 

Kravitz's laughter stills and the sound of something snapping fills his silence. “Is he that obvious about it?”

“No,” Taako says, voice muffled by the bandages in his teeth. He pulls until the threads snap. “My sister’s just _really_ good at reading people and Barry can’t keep a secret to save his life. Well. it is obvious if you know, but honestly, I just thought he got nervous in big groups.”

The sigh that he lets out is nearly loud enough that it would’ve put Taako at ease if he wasn’t so focused on getting his burn covered. “You should probably get some sleep,” Kravitz says, quiet as if he were the one sneaking around sleeping roommates. But, as far as Taako knew, he lived alone. “Wouldn’t want to keep you up all night.”

He makes a noise as he leaves the bathroom, pausing in the hall long enough to peer into Lup and Barry’s room to see their shoulders rise and fall. Just enough until he knows they’re alive. He sighs, shoulders dropping back to a neutral state. “I mean, maybe. Don’t think I’m gonna be sleeping at all if I’m going to be real with you, my guy. You, however, are a fleshy boy that kinda sorta needs sleep. I mean, how else are you going to stay as hot as you are?”

“Why, I’m flattered, Taako!” A chair scraping against the floor, wooden floorboards creaking every other step, the sound of blankets shifting. “I just… I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep if I hang up. Having someone to talk to, to be around, even if through a stone, makes it better.”

Flopping to his bed dramatically, limbs splayed, Taako pulls his heavy blankets set to the side of him up and over his body. “Ugh, fine.” He groans, shifting until he’s on his side, staring into the light of his stone. “I’ll stay on the line until you fall asleep or whatever.”

A long yawn. “Thank you, Taako.” His bed creaks. “Tell me about your bond theory?”

“Okay, shit, so you know the basics right? So basically I’m trying to take the bonds and change them…”

“...Taako?” Lup’s soft hands tap at his temples, just hard enough to bring him back to himself. When he blinks at her blearily, finally acknowledging her presence, she shoves a glass into his grasp before turning around and vanishing into the house without another word. Lucretia gives him a worried glance before turning back to her book, a swift master at minding her own business. “Drink.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” he protests, turning his attention back to Julia, still staring at him expectantly with a warm smile. Fuck, what was he talking about? Something something dessert— oh, right. “Anyway. All you have to do is sprinkle some cinnamon on top, add some chocolate chips, and voila, you’ve got one kickass bread pudding. Seriously. It _needs_ more sugar.”

Julia laughs with the same boisterous and carefree manner as her husband. “Yeah, I sort of figured that much but all either of us could think of was ‘add more vanilla’, which doesn’t do much good for all parties involved. Thank you, Taako. Really.” 

“Hey, babe!” Magnus calls from underneath the towering tree in their backyard, where Merle is inspecting their garden. Davenport sits in the tire swing, watching idly. “Merle says you can’t lift me!”

She’s already rolling up her sleeves before he can finish suggesting she prove him wrong, sending Taako an apologetic shrug. “Sorry to cut our conversation, Taako, but you know how it is.”

“Yeah, showbiz, I get the deal.” When she’s halfway to Magnus, “I’m placing two gold on Julia!”

Merle pauses his inspection to cup his hands around his mouth and shout, “Three gold on Magnus!” 

Taako doesn’t stick around to see the outcome, instead deciding to turn to Lucretia, her gaze fixed on his bandaged hand. She glances up at him, and time seems to slow. Her brows furrow at the look he gives her a glare that got caught somewhere between deer-in-the-headlights and someone five seconds from a mental breakdown. She takes his hand in hers and runs her fingertips along the palm, too light to make it hurt. _Istus_ , he prays, _don't let me have this conversation now_. “What did you think of the book I gave you?” She asks, in the same voice she would have used if she wanted to ask him if it still hurt, or _why._

The breath that he lets out is shaky at best. “It was pretty rad, even if I don’t read all that much. You know I love a good romance.” She huffs out a laugh, hands still grazing over his. “I’m almost done, anyhow. I’ll get it back to you next week.”

Letting go of him, Lucretia waves vaguely and picks up her book from her lap. “Don’t worry about it. Get it back to me whenever you can.” She looks at him in her peripheral. “I know you’re busy. Don’t want to make you feel like you have to finish it any time soon.”

Taako’s stone buzzes in his pocket. It’s not Kravitz, though an unread text from him at the bottom of the screen glares up at him, thanking him for staying up with him. Instead, it’s Lup, asking if he can help her wrangle dinner. With a sigh, he pushes himself up from the comforts of Julia’s oh so comfortable bench and pats Lucretia’s shoulder half-heartedly on his way inside. 

Cooking with Lup is always an art, or, as Merle calls it ‘a godsdamned fantasy Olympic sport’. They rush about the kitchen, always able to move out of each other's way just before they collide, dancing around from counter to counter, tossing utensils and seasonings without either having to ask. Barry sits in a stool on the other side of a connecting window, watching them idly like a white suburban dad watches golf. Which is to say he was absolutely enthralled with it for no good reason. “When do you think you’re gonna get called back to go treasure hunting?” She asks while Taako pulls marinated pork out from the dish. She chops at vegetables without looking at them directly, confident that her knife will never steer her wrong. Fondly, Taako remembers the time she accidentally cut her finger and then yelled at the knife like it was the problem and not her faulty chopping. 

“I’m not sure, honestly. Merle thinks it could be at any minute, and Magnus is convinced she won't interrupt any of our plans, But I,” the pork slaps onto the already sizzling pan and pops with intent. Barry flinches. “Think she doesn’t care about what we’re doing, because she controls most of what happens to us anyway.”

They have a bet going on about it. Mostly because Taako knows he’s mostly right about stupid shit like how the goddess they pledged themselves to operates and just how strong Julia is. 

So when Taako’s ring lights up in the middle of dinner, his fork raised to his mouth, he sends a look in Magnus and Merle’s direction. “Pay up,” he says, stretching out one hand while the other holds the ring to his mouth. “Sorry, dude, gimme a hot second.”

Coins are pressed into his waiting palm. “Okay, go.”

“I need the three of you and Lup to fetch me the third item.”

“Right now, or…?” Asks Magnus, watching with a nice blend of horror and fascination as Lup shovels her plate of food into her mouth. 

Needles shifting together. “Right now. You’ll have to head to the dumpster behind the fantasy Dollar Tree to get to where I need you.”

“Wha—”

“Everyone knows that there’s a portal behind the Dollar Tree,” says Lup, Taako, and Merle in deadpan unison before Magnus can finish his question. “Duh.”

Istus sounds like she’s smiling when she speaks next. “You’ll have to get through in the next ten minutes. I’ll talk to you later.” The ring dims. The eight of them look at each other. Then at their food. Then back to each other.

Five of them choke scarfing down a hefty meal in under two minutes. Two of them might have been Taako and Julia. They won’t admit it if you ask them, though. There’s a rush with everyone trying to piece together enough equipment for the four of them to survive the apocalypse, with Lucretia putting more bandages and alcohol wipes into Barry’s book bag they'd repurposed for their needs (they'd pulled out a mouse in a jar and Barry wouldn't meet their eyes to explain why it was there with his journals in the first place). Magnus nearly kicks open his bedroom door to get his ax and then ends up falling halfway out the hallway window when Barry runs into him. Merle goes to the garden and comes back with a new Hawaiian shirt on that he hadn't arrived with. No one asks how he got it. Taako tears a hair tie from Lup’s wrist, the two of them frantically working to tie his hair into a braid able to stand up to nuclear warfare. Julia trips down the stairs looking for a bandana to tie Lup’s hair back.

Davenport sits with his head on the dining room table, groaning through the entire ordeal. He only gets up when everyone's ready to leave, panting and out of breath at the front door.

Kravitz texts Taako five times in the four minutes it takes for everyone to be running out the door and down the block to the Fantasy Dollar Tree. 

**Krav-Apple**

You know, I went to sleep after my shift and woke up five hours later. I think that’s my body telling me it hates me?

I just want a break for a day is that so much to ask for??

Alas, my soul is subjected to an eternal

torment from which the only 

escape is faking my death, how poor it must be to be me!

Do you think Ravens like shiny stuff because they’re capitalists

They’re definitely capitalists.

Lucretia, Davenport, Julia, and Barry break off when the Dollar Tree looms in the distance, all bright lights and tired looking employees. Julia sweeps Magnus into her arms to kiss him silly, Barry gets dragged by the collar to give a ‘proper goodbye kiss, godsdammit,’ to Lup, and Merle makes Davenport do some oddly complicated handshake. Lucretia leaves them all to go in through the glass doors at the same time Taako rounds the back and Mage Hands the dumpster out of the way to reveal a black hole in the wall, absolutely radiating arcane energy. 

The force is enough to whip Taako’s braid behind him and slightly skew his sunglasses. A flower flies from Merle’s beard when he walks up. “Well,” says Lup, squinting into the portal, “I’m not going first. Magnus—”

Lup turns to Magnus, only to see him already barrelling through the portal, shouting and whooping the whole way. She meets Taako’s gaze, then nudges him in the arm, smiling wickedly. She glances at Merle.

They push him through the portal. Laughing and bracing themselves on their knees, their high five can be heard from miles away. “Okay, okay. Shit, I really don’t want to go through this,” Taako says, wiping tears from his eyes and adjusting his sunglasses. Lup has a finger pressed to her lips in contemplation.

“We jump together?” She suggests, offering her hand. He doesn’t hesitate to take it. He never has. “On three.”

Taako pulls the two of them through the portal before she can even get to two, laughing at her surprised scream as they stumble through a thick layer of… well, Taako didn’t know what it was, but it was… gelatinous, if he needed to put a word to it. In the blink of an eye, he feels leaves and branches poking into his skin, and Lup spits out a leaf at his side. “Oh, they’re in here!” Magnus yells, and from what he can see through the leaves, Merle holds a thumbs up from where he’s lying on his back in the center of what can only be described as a forest clearing. This was, as he so often called it, his ‘prayer stance’. Mavis tells them that he only prays on the floor when he's trying to get Pan to kill someone. Strong arms grab onto Taako’s outstretched hand, hauling the twins out from what was, as he quickly found out, a nice shrubbery wall. “Man, you guys got a shitty place to pop out!”

“Yeah no shit,” he says, pulling leaves from his hair. Lup pulls an entire branch out of her jacket, looking at it with the intent of someone trying to figure out the meaning of life before she shrugs and tosses it over her shoulder. Vines are forming a canopy overhead, a Merle-shaped break already forming back together. Midday sunlight filters through it. Last he checked, it was night outside back at the Dollar Tree. “Huh.” He turns to Lup, who looks positively ecstatic.

“Earth elemental plane,” she says, simply. She turns her head in one direction while he turns the other, both glaring at the armored statues standing at attention at the very edges of the clearing. “Does anyone else feel magic?”

Immediately on cue, the statues shift in unison, brandishing their weapons, swords and bows and axes alike, and stepping down from their pedestals. The moss on their skin flakes but doesn’t fall, and their stone eyes glow a bright white. Merle grunts as Magnus hauls him to his feet. “Shit,” he says with feeling. Lup lets go of Taako’s hand, glancing once in his direction to make sure he had his wand out. 

A longsword crashes into the ground in the space where Taako was standing not a second ago, lodging itself into the moss and dirt. In the Ethereal plane, he lets out a hiss, watching as blood rolls down his arm. A scratch, but Fantasy Christ on a bicycle was he cutting this shit close. Blinking back into the Earth plane, he readies his wand and yells, “Stay out of my area for a hot sec, my dudes!” 

Ice crawls across the moss upon his feet, shooting from his wand in a spiraling light that slams into the center of two Gensai guardians. One of them stumbles out relatively unscathed, the other frozen in place and frantically shifting. The magic missiles he sends after it leaves nothing but crumbled rock in its wake. There’s a wave of heat against his back, and Lup lets out cackling laughter somewhere across the clearing. Her back bumps into his, feet sliding across the frozen moss underneath him. “Wanna Rock ‘em Sock ‘em?” she asks, throwing up a shield against a barrage of arrows headed straight for the two of them. Merle announces to any witnesses and God himself that he'd like to cast Banishment, and three of the Gensai fall into a portal that forms beneath their feet.

“Oh _fuck_ yeah. Get one of the ones with the war hammers,” He says, pushing off of her feet to go thrusting back into the Ethereal Plane, just long enough to bring himself behind a Gensai wielding just an ungodly looking hammer. The poor dude _bombs_ a check against his Dominate Person, which, honestly, shouldn’t have worked but what’re you going to do, God? Kill him?

Lup’s Guardian stands at attention across the clearing from his, with Magnus giving her what cover he can while she concentrates. Wordlessly, Taako urges his guardian to destroy. Well, destroy anything but the nice, flesh humans trying to kill everything else in the room. 

Taako likes to think about the look of absolute confusion on the archer guardian’s face when their companion swings around, hammer raised and crashing down into their stone skull when he’s feeling especially sad. Or the laughter that Lup lets out across the clearing as hers swings a hammer between two of them, effectively taking out their torsos.

Jumping out of the way of another sword, Taako gets a rock fist to the face in turn. He goes down hard, rolling onto his back as his throat lets out a wheezing breath. The clearing spins, and he can recognize his bandaged hand lifting his wand into the air, slowly, arm trembling. He sees a spark at the tip of his wand, then darkness, then nothing but bright, blinding light barely obscured by his sunglasses, then Merle, slapping his bible across his face. Hard. “Holy Istus!” He yells, backhanding Merle’s glasses off of his face almost entirely on reflex. Almost. “What the hell, dude?” He asks, flailing blindly until Magnus grabs his arms and hauls him to his feet.

“You weren’t getting up,” he says by way of explanation, stalking off down a hallway without another word. “What the hell are we even here for?”

Lup fishes in Taako’s bag of holding for him, patting the back of his head idly as he shifts his weight onto her until the room stops spinning. The list appears not a second too soon, unfolded and in her hand. “Says we’re here for some chalice? There’s a little drawing of two hands pressing against a mirror. Dunno what that means.” The note vanishes without further problems, and Taako rights himself.

“She uh,” he says, stumbling after Merle, “She draws things like that. They never have much to do with what we’re looking for, but it’s almost always in the same place.”

She hums, glaring back at the decimated statues behind them. “Weird, but all of this is so who am I to judge? Hey, Magnus, babe, you got any healing potions on you? I think I pulled a muscle trying to backflip off of one of those stone dudes.”

“Shit, sorry, Lup, I just had the last one. Barry only had two in his bag.”

“Figures.” Draping herself over Taako, she sighs. “Guess we’ll just die. Alone and unloved.”

Taako places the back of his hand against his forehead. “And to think, I’ll have died without a boy to kiss!” The two dissolve into snickers, elbowing each other up until Merle stops dead in a doorway formed with vines and roots, both twins crashing into his back and nearly tripping in the process.

“Did the mirrors look anything like this?” He asks, gesturing vaguely ahead of him. Magnus shoves his way through while Lup stares, dumbfounded.

Mirrors line a small circular room, spaced out evenly and doing a pretty piss poor job of reflecting much of anything. Taako can see vague colors behind them, shifting as Magnus walks by them and right up to the chalice. The colors aren't reflections like he originally thought. Magnus puts the chalice into Barry's bag.

Taako feels the magic under the mirrors before he even approaches them. Lup has her right hand outstretched, fingertips skimming the surface on one side of the room, while he takes two tentative steps into the room. “They're enchanted,” he says, glancing over his shoulder to where Magnus is tapping on the surface of one dead ahead from where the chalice was. “But I can’t figure out what they’re meant to _do_.” 

Ripples of color chase after the four of them the moment Taako finishes speaking, Magnus’s surprised yell drowned out by the roar of lava flowing and fire popping in his ears. “Yo, does anyone else hear… ravens?” Lup calls out, all but shouting to be heard. Merle mumbles a response that falls upon deaf ears. Taako shouts about lava.

Magnus yells “I hear the ocean!” Just as the mirrors turn reflective. Taako half expects to see himself, blinking at his reflection.

Instead, he sees a room with the same composition as the one they’re in, except instead of moss and stone on the floor it’s extrusive igneous rock and instead of plants lining the mirrors its lava, falling through the floor and fire spouting from cracks in the ground. The mirrors to his left show the skeleton, hood down and back facing the mirror with a bloodied scythe in hand, then a raven swooping low and following after a retreating figure, then a classroom watching as light erupts from a magic circle in the center of the room, strings unwinding and full of so much color, then--

Someone crashes in through the lava. It’s another cloaked figure. They land on their side. Hard. Taako can no longer hear, but the figure’s shoulders shake when they roll onto their stomach and try and push themselves up, and it doesn’t take sound to know they’re cursing and groaning in pain. They stand with shaking legs, viol gripped tight in in one hand and the other open, reaching for something unseen. A towering giant made of magma rushes in after them dripping with lava that left the cloaked figure seemingly untouched, and the figure yells to the sky, throwing the viol to the ground just as their shadow shifts and bubbles rising around them and into their hands forming a magnificent, gleaming scythe. They lunge, and Taako watches as the giant halts with its club held high above and silver flashes. Taako watches as the giant crumbles into a pile of pava on the ground.

Taako watches as golden eyes turn from the giant to the pedestal. He takes a half step back, hands trembling as he sees Kravitz let go of the scythe and barely glances to it as the shadows return behind him, his attention trained on the pedestal in front of him. He walks with a limp and clutches his arm as he lifts a key into the light, turning it over before dropping his head and pocketing it. His shoulders fall with a long sigh.

When he looks up, he’s staring directly at Taako. His jaw falls open, lips forming his name as he stumbles down the steps leading to the pedestal and stops directly in front of his mirror. He tries to speak again, to ask him something, but Taako can’t read his lips. So he wets his own, ignores the dread in his stomach, and asks, “What _are_ you?”

Kravitz tenses, his eyes looking anywhere but him. After a while, he raises bloodied and bruised hands to his chest, and mimes opening it and pull a hand away from his heart fingers curled around an invisible shape. Taako must look confused (because shit, he is, what does his night terrors have to do with anything?), since Kravitz shakes his head, a smile on his face. Then he places a hand on the mirror, the other gripping at a wound across his hip. 

  
In the split second it takes for Taako to look him over, he doesn’t remember Istus’s drawing. Instead, he thinks about whether or not Kravitz is going to make it out. He’s bleeding, trembling, and every time he breathes he winces. But instead of trying to voice this to him, Taako brings to completion the world's cheesiest self-fulfilling prophecy and presses his bandaged hand against the mirror, right over Kravitz’s. He glances at the bandages briefly, a question in the way his lips part and how his brows furrow. It was a problem for later. There’s no question about it for Taako— Kravitz is going to make it out of here.

A shadow casts over the mirror, dragging Kravitz’s attention upwards. His smile doesn't grow and it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but he says something to the shadow, too fast and too quick for Taako to catch on. When he looks back at him, the smile becomes something genuine.

And then it’s gone.

Taako’s hand lingers, mind blank and reeling as he stares at clouded glass, not even a flicker of black and red to tell him that Kravitz is still on the other side. Magnus is crying, a smile upon his face as he turns from his mirror. Merle kicks his mirror, muttering curses at it.

Lup and Taako stare at each other from across the room, and for once in their lives, Taako is the one with a level head. Lup looks _terrified_ , and he only knows because for their entire lives it's been him that's scared, him that fears the unknown, and Lup that comforts him. He doesn't know what she saw that would shake her up enough to have her trembling.

As they watch a portal unwind in the center of a stone gateway that wasn’t in the clearing they entered before, Taako reaches out. Lup squeezes his hand back, not in reassurance, but a guarantee that she’s here. She’s alive and whole, and they will be safe, no matter what.

He squeezes back.

And they step through the portal.

**✧**

They stumble into the Dollar Tree at exactly seven fifty-eight P.M. 

Barry rushes up to Lup and Taako, abandoning his basket in the middle of an aisle. He checks over Lup’s wounds first, massages a knot out of her pulled shoulder, and checks Taako over for a concussion or any broken bones. He doesn’t have any, but he stands still until he’s done, sunglasses resting on his head and eyes staring blankly at the ceiling. Lucretia gives him a roll of Fantasy Hi-Chews. He doesn’t thank her, but he doesn’t need to. She’s learned years ago that the weariness easing off his features was thanks enough.

Julia finishes her purchase at the cash register before sliding across the floor to Magnus, pulling grass from his hair and kissing his bloodied lips. Magnus laughs, like he’d never been happy before, and brings her close. He whispers something to her, and she looks at him funny, before slapping him on the shoulder and pressing their foreheads together.

Davenport was already sitting on a stack of boxes when they came in, so Merle just wandered over his way and sat down next to him, planting his head on his shoulder. He holds his bible until his knuckles turn white, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of Taako and Lup. He tells Davenport that he was worried, for the first time in his life, that his healing might not be enough to fix what they saw.

The eight of them leave the Dollar Tree at Eight P.M when the last cashier shoos them out. Lucretia talks in hushed voices with Lup while Barry and Magnus help Taako walk after his leg gave out a few feet into the trek home. After a minute or two of this, Lup shoves Magnus away from her brother and tells him to spend time with his wife. They slow down until the rest of the group is some ways ahead, and Lup’s worry puts creases in her face as she turns to Taako and Barry. She tells them about how she saw a woman that looked like Auntie, except she had feathers for hair and a black satin robe drawn about her. The woman who looked like Auntie had ravens sat upon every surface around her, but she barely paid them any attention. She spoke with someone just out of view, and the ravens all opened their beaks to speak in time with her.

  
Lup tells them that Barry was there, in another mirror, holding a scythe and reading aloud from a hefty book. She turns to Taako, tries to tell him something, then looks down at her feet.

Later that night, when Lup crawls onto the pull-out couch Taako had insisted Magnus and Julia buy and hugs him as if he’d vanish into thin air, he tells her about Kravitz. Not about their late-night talks, no, that would always be between the two of them. He tells her about how lava didn’t burn him, but he was covered in bruises and wounds and his ankle was bent in the wrong way, about how they saw each _other_.

And that's when Lup tells him why he saw Kravitz in the first place.

“It was in Primadorial, just these… scattered words on each of the mirrors. They said ‘Here you find growth. Here you find the catalyst leading to a self you’ve yet to meet.’”

Taako doesn't look in a mirror for the next three days.

He doesn't know what would look back at him.

~~_3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, kept in a room guarded by guardians and what has yet to come to pass._ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

Flaming spit hits Kravitz’s face, burning at his skin but leaving him unburnt as it rolls down his chin and splashes to the ground. He desperately tries to play another song, bow dissonant against the strings as a glowing sword forms at his side, wreathed in unstable celestial energy. He sends it crashing into the giant’s stone leg, which does little other than anger it, and he can only try and run as it brings its club at him from the side. There's a moment where he tries to duck, only he doesn't move fast enough and he's trying to keep his viol out of the way. So as he goes down, he takes a deep breath and holds it.

He feels bones crack as the black rock slams into his gut, sending him soaring through the air and into the lava, which burns at his skin even with the protection his cloak gives him. According to his Queen, he'd only get a wicked sunburn in the aftermath, and somehow he dreads that more than the pain of the fire. His leg screams in pain as he passes through the lava the same way you pass through a waterfall and falling, down, crashing into hard ground.

So he’s having a great day.

Kravitz feels his head swimming and pulsing as he cries out, arms aching and legs barely supporting him as he tries to right himself, failing once before he bites his lip and pushes through. He looks down at his Viol, broken at the neck, and then he’s suddenly brought to attention to a deafening roar nearing him. He reaches out, trying desperately to tap into the well of power that the Raven Queen insisted they shared, as the giant comes barreling through the lava after him. 

His brain feels like someone stabbed tiny knives into them as he prays and prays, and keeps pushing them further in, until he can no longer bear the pain, his vision going dark. He distantly hears him screaming his prayers to the sky. All at once, it clears. There’s a solid weight, in his hands. It feels familiar like it was waiting for him just out of sight the whole time. When he opens his eyes he sees a scythe, nearly identical to the one his Queen always had beside her throne, hefted into the air in his free hand. Without another thought he throws his broken viol behind him, trying not to wince at the crash it makes and tightens his grip on the scythe.

When Kravitz breathes, there’s a sharp pain that stabs through his chest. He establishes within himself that he was _not_ looking forward to however many broken ribs he has right now. “ _Fight,_ ” Says the voice of his Queen, and he doesn’t bother trying to see if there’s a raven nearby. “ _The rest will come naturally. You were reborn again for this very purpose.”_

The pain and sores forming throughout his body ease up as he leans forward, spacing out his feet and adjusting his arms. The pain in his chest is dulled. He can put his weight back on his right leg. So, right as the giant positions itself to put him out of his misery, Kravitz lunges. He feels his feet land on the ground once, twice, then not at all, his arms bringing his scythe back and up then _forward_. The magma sprays all around him as the blade slides through its body like butter, and he pushes himself off of its face, frozen in horror up into the air and back onto the floor, scythe held outstretched. Well, Kravitz _thinks_ it looked horrified in its last minutes, but he lost his glasses somewhere on the floor. 

Cracking his neck, Kravitz turns to the pedestal in the center of the room, sitting on a raised platform. He goes up the stairs just as his adrenaline wears off, scythe dematerializing and falling through his fingers like water, and he catches himself on the edges of the pedestal before he falls right over the edge and fucks himself up. There, on a piece of velvet, is… just a key. Shit, he didn’t know what he was expecting, but it could’ve looked a little fancier.

He puts it in his pocket, and mourns the state of his pants, ripped and covered in ash and bloodstains. 

When he looks up, he sees Taako, his braid messy, sunglasses broken in one lens, and what looks like a wicked black eye in the making. Then Taako’s eyes widen like he wasn’t expecting to see him. Kravitz looks around desperately for any sort of excuse for what he was doing that could fit into a nice, normal, non-emissary tale of adventure. But then he sees the magma giant that he just killed with a scythe he fucking summoned from thin air and abandons any such notion.

Now, with his fear gone, all he can think is Taako Taako _Taako._ His entire body screams to stop, to rest, but he pushes through, stumbling to the mirror ahead of him. He can see Lup and Magnus behind him, and too many images flashing across the surfaces and— was that the Raven Queen on the one in front of Lup? Forget it. He’ll figure it out later. “Taako,” he says, applying pressure to a spot in his stomach that’s dully burning— he must have stabbed himself on something. Warm blood soaks through his shirt, stains his hands. “Where are you?”

He squints at the general direction of his lips, his own pulled taught. If you were to ask Kravitz to find the definition of ‘confused’ in the dictionary, it would show you Taako of two seconds ago. He licks his lips before opening his mouth, but no sound comes out. Kravitz never needed sound to read lips, though, and Taako’s question has him taking pause.

‘ _What are you?_ ’

How to begin? Kravitz looks around the circular room, trying dearly not to look at the look of barely concealed worry on his face. He thinks about his dreams, or, rather, what he told Taako about dreams. Trembling, he brings his arms up to his chest and tries to tell him without having to speak. But how do you convey to someone that you died and got better? When his hands fall back to his side, Taako only seems more lost. Kravitz huffs, and shakes his head, smiling despite himself because of course, he wouldn’t understand if he didn’t convey it properly. He'd never be able to understand until Kravitz told him. He places his palm on the mirror to steady himself when the room sways, and comes back to Taako, pale as a ghost and searching his face, looking for _something_.

Whatever he finds seems to ease some of the tension from his shoulders, and against all expectations, he lifts a bandaged hand to press against his. Kravitz spends longer than he should be staring at the cloth wrapped around him, covering an injury he hadn’t mentioned before. There are grass stains on the palm, so that tells him he didn’t get it on his way into the room nearly identical to the one he’s in, presuming that’s why he looks beat to shit and has moss sticking to his collarbone. When he looks back up to Taako, he’s all but perfected the deer in the headlights look. It’s now that he can appreciate Taako’s eyes, blending so perfectly into the greenery around him. There are gold flecks that reflect at him if he tilts his head just so.

Taako tells him without saying anything that both of them have something to explain, so Kravitz is just content to stand here and be with him before that could ever come, until a Raven appears on top of the mirror, golden eyes staring down at him. “ _You look, pardon my language, like shit, Kravitz,_ ” she says, blinking at him minutely. When he glances back to catch a look at Taako, he finds that the mirror had turned milky, reflecting nothing but distant reds and oranges back at him-- his reflection, namely, is absent. “ _But you did superb._ ”

Kravitz bows deeply, before he lets out a little yell and braces himself on his knees, stabbing pain coursing through his body. “I— Thank you— My Queen— It was— _shit —_ No problem.” 

“ _Are you alright, my child?_ ”

“Just—give me a second,” he wheezes, waving vaguely in her general direction. His vision blurs around the edges. “I’ve got this.”

And then Kravitz wakes up in the hospital.

He blinks rapidly, trying to shake off the weariness that weighs down his bones and pathetically tries to dim the glare of the lights. “...Bright,” he mumbles. There’s a shout of surprise, and the lights immediately shut off, save for the lamp on a bedside table. Well, if he was demanding stuff, might as well just— “Water.” He makes a grabbing motion with his hand.

“Sorry, dude, Nurses said that’s illegal or whatever.” A tanned face pops into view, covered in moles and tired eyes barely hidden under curly brown hair. Johann immediately gets shoved out of the way for Ren, her white hair tied back in the same scrunchie she always used when she worked the Sunday shifts.

“How are you feeling? Johann, go get someone,” she says, gently easing him into a sitting position. “We had to pull some serious strings to get the doctors to not ask questions about why you’ve got like, five broken bones. On the topic of that though I know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy that’s a master cleric so she can fix your bones if the Raven Queen can’t.”

“Oh, that would be lovely,” Kravitz says, leaning his head back into the pillows. He lifts a cast-covered arm into the light. “How long did they want to keep me?”

“Just for another day, they said? Wanted to make sure they didn’t miss any fractures and check for brain damage.” Ren leans back in her chair, fiddling with her blouse. “Listen, you got a—”

“—Got a nurse to come over in a hot second,” Announces Johann, fixing his hat as he backs into the room and tumbles into the chair opposite of Ren. “Dude, what the _fuck_ happened to you?”

“Lava giant to the gut. Threw me around a bit. Not important, got what I went there for. What _I_ want to know is, one, how I got back because last time I checked I was in the Elemental Plane of fire, and two, what I ‘got’ according to Ren.” He slurs his words every once in a while, and takes his time speaking, which, talking always came easy to him. So either he hit his head too hard, or they put him on some top-notch killer painkillers.

“You uh… You just popped onto my floor at like, seven fifty-eight? And this raven— thanks for telling us about that being real, by the way, still scared the shit out of me— this raven, like, looked at me and told me that it thinks you might need medical attention which, listen, man, if a raven talks and sits on your best friend’s crumpled body and tells you to take him to the hospital, you take him to the hospital.” Johann tilts back in his chair, puffing out air. “So I called up Sloane and was like, listen, I know we don’t talk much but like, my friend needs a hospital, can you come by real quick? And she was all—”

“—That’s good right there,” Ren cuts in, holding a hand out in his general direction. She pulls his stone of far speech from her bag and holds it out to him, looking a little sheepish. “You got a call from Taako while you were still out and I might’ve accepted it? And I might’ve told him you were here so now he’s on his way?”

Kravitz looks away from Ren, back to the glaring ceiling light. He can't feel any sort of panic through the painkillers. “Oh, good,” he says faintly. He closes his eyes, just for a moment, and wakes up with afternoon light drifting in through the window, and a figure curled up on the small couch pushed against it, chewing on a fingernail and inspecting rows upon rows of rings. His black eye is still there, covered by the hair he’d left loose from a bun that has his wand shoved unceremoniously through the center. Other than that, his bruises and scrapes are gone. Kravitz clears his throat and instead of saying anything at all to be smooth or well-spoken or explain himself, he says, “You look better.”

Taako whips his head around to stare at him for what feels like hours until finally, he breaks down into wheezing laughter. He calms after a few seconds, throwing his legs to the floor and scooting himself to the very edge of the cushion. “Yeah, I tried, uh. I tried this wonderful thing, you’ve just been familiarly acquainted with it, called, uh, sleeping for a whole day?” He coughs awkwardly, cheeks flushing. He wrings his hands together, and Kravitz notices with abrupt clarity that both of his hands are freed from any type of bandages, and there’s a distinct, fading burn on the palm. “Listen, I know you’ve probably been asked how you’re doing and all that fun shit, so let’s just skip that.”

The wall in front of him looks rather interesting as of right now. He tries to find any impurities in the dull beige paint job. “Yeah, we probably should,” he says, voice falling flat. He feels his chest rise and fall, the sharp pains of his broken ribs dulled to an itch. Kravitz turns his head halfway towards the window, trying to ignore the worry, the dread in his stomach. He looks up to see his IV drip empty, and curses his luck. “Taako, I--”

“--Do you want food?” Taako doesn’t look up from where he’s stretching across the back of one of the arms, waving his arm until a tote bag’s handles come into view. With the bag in his lap, he looks anywhere but at Kravitz as he digs into it. “I mean, real food. Not the shit they’re gonna try and feed you in like, an hour tops.”

“It depends on what you brought, doesn’t it?” He asks, lips twitching at the corners as two metal containers slide out onto the empty seat next to Taako, a monster of a thermos triumphantly in his right hand. “Because, listen, Taako, I could kill for some real spicy noodles right now.”

He snorts, nose scrunching up as he smiles at Kravitz, a real, genuine smile. “Really? After what you just went through?” He doesn’t mention specifics. For that, Kravitz is grateful. He nearly expected an interrogation from the moment he woke up, but this… whole out of sight out of mind deal is like a breath of fresh air. Taako gets up from the couch and gestures Kravitz to move over, pulling the food tray out from behind the curtain and over his lap. One of the metal containers lands with an unceremonious thunk, hot to the touch. The thermos gets set right next to it. “Nah, I didn’t get you spicy noodles, but if you hit me up some time I’m deffo down for some, I can make you some spicy ramen that slaps _hard_.”

Taako slides into the chair Johann had long since abandoned, propping his legs up onto the hospital bed. Kravitz’s hand slips off the side of the lid. He sighs and presses his head against the food tray. A pop brings him back up, and steam wafts up from the opened container. Taako lowers his hand and stubbornly says nothing about it. The food smells like heaven, or, in a literal sense, like a spice field set on fire. “Cheesy potatoes and rigatoni,” he says, right as Kravitz pulls the still burning container over to him. He taps a well-manicured nail against the thermos. “And _this_ doesn’t really go with anything because you’re a fucking animal and I sacrifice so much shit for you, but I’m benevolent and a god with hot chocolate, so I’ll be taking payments by compliments effective immediately.”

Mouth full of potatoes that all but melt onto his tongue and tears in his eyes, “Holy _shit_.”

Taako ducks his head and twirls his fork around the pasta. “I know.” 

“Holy _shit_ , Taako. I thought Ren’s cooking was good but what the fuck! I just-- shit.” Kravitz shoves forkfuls of pasta into his mouth to shut himself up. Saying that he ate a diet half subsiding off of Ren’s cooking and instant ramen would be an understatement. He also ate protein bars sometimes, thank you very much. He can see now why a single person could drive Ren to pursue a dream she never knew she had-- flavors dance across his taste buds and envelop him with the familiarity of a home that Kravitz spent his whole life trying to find.

“Left you speechless, I see.”

He swallows hard and feels a smile blossoming across his face looking at Taako, currently pretending like he wasn’t looking at him not two seconds ago. “You tend to do that to me.”

Kravitz feels particularly smug when Taako chokes on his pasta, flushed to the tips of his ears. Even if it was the truth (he’s rather incompetent from the moment he hears Taako’s voice to the moment he leaves), it’s not as if he doesn’t gain something from flustering him, hard as it may be. After the shitty night he had, he deserved that in the very least. “I don’t even have anything prepared to come back at that with! Fuck! Shit! Drink your goddamn hot chocolate you hot bastard!” He says in-between coughs, half-collapsed onto the plastic arm of the chair.

Partly because he wanted to drink it in the first place and mostly because he’s gay and weak, Kravitz obediently pulls the thermos as close to him as he can. Eventually, Taako recovers and starts rambling about how he woke up to fifteen texts from Angus telling him about the cases he’d been solving in Rockport and Goldcliff, which leads to a thirty-minute tangent about Hurley and Sloane and Krav, you’ve _got_ to see one of their races.

Taako cuts himself off a half-second before there’s a knock at the door, and a woman’s quiet voice calling his name. He quickly shoves the metal containers into his tote, slings it over his shoulder, and reclines across the couch as if he belonged there. A long, slender arm stretches above his head and snaps. When Kravitz blinks, he’s gone. The nurse pushes the door open with her shoulder, pulling a cart along with her. They exchange pleasantries and he learns that her name was Lilith, and when pressed, she tells him that visiting hours ended an hour ago.

He sends a look in Taako’s general direction, fixing for a disapproving glare but only succeeding in amusement. Lilith takes his vitals, makes some comment about his heart rate that would’ve been a nice way of declining his advancements if he wasn’t interested in _her_ in the slightest. His nervous giggling still manages to give her the impression that he, of all people, is straight, so he’s already planning how to fake his death in his head by the time she leaves, the door cracked ajar. 

Taako appears back on the couch when he looks back, giggling like a schoolgirl with a secret. “Oh _man_ that spell never gets old,” he says, speaking in the closest thing he could ever get to a whisper. “I’ll just take that to mean it’s my cue to leave. Keep the thermos, Barry bought too many a few months back, and uh, give me a call when you’re out? It’d be super cool of you if I didn’t have to call Ren again to talk to her about you. People talk, you know.” He winks. Heat crawls up Kravitz's cheeks, an involuntary reaction to Taako being Taako by this point.

“Like that’d ever stop you.” Kravitz smiles up at Taako, who rather looks like he’s staring directly at the sun. 

He shifts his bag and begins climbing back up the couch, forcing the nearest window open. “Fuck yeah, Taako’s a bullet train and everything’s just a cardboard box on the tracks, you know how we do.” With a leg out the window, he hesitates. “Don’t have any weird dreams tonight.” But the way he says it, the meek lilt to his voice, is all Kravitz needs to hear to know that wasn’t what he meant to say. Taako vanishes out through the window with one last awkward wave, and his laughter fills the night air.

That night, Kravitz dreams of His Queen’s throne room. He’s seated in-between her legs while her clawed hands braid charms back into his hair. He knows he’s not there physically, to some degree, but his soul often drifts when he sleeps, and more often than not, he finds himself in the Astral Plane. His casts are gone, in here. And he knows that when he wakes the next morning, the golden charms will still be there, secured into his hair.

The Raven Queen sings while she works. Kravitz chews on the inside of his cheek until skin flakes off. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. Smothers a frustrated groan. His Queen waits until he's ready with unrivaled patience. “Why did you bring me back?” He asks, voice echoing throughout the room. Her singing pauses, but the ravens envelop them with gentle humming in voices that were and weren't her own. 

“You’re special, Kravitz. You know that.”

“That’s not an answer, my Queen.”

She sighs, seventeen different voices sighing with her. She runs her hands down his shoulders, easing tension from him bit by bit. “You shouldn’t be alive right now,” she says, finally, voice soothing but managing to do nothing except send chills down his spine. “But I broke my code for you to come back. Idyllic as it is, I like to think that when you die, abrupt as the first time, people would miss you. No one would have if I’d kept you dead fifteen years ago.”

Which was _not_ what Kravitz was expecting. She says it with the bluntness that doesn’t care whether he’ll find comfort in knowing he’s still alive because a goddess took pity on him, or unease at the fact that he wouldn’t have been missed-- just another missing person found dead in a ditch. Soft hands press against his jaw, and a kiss is pressed into the top of his head. Neither of which are warm, her body as cold as ice. “It’s not something I expect you to understand; the whys and the hows, my child. Your death was brutal, merciless. One day you’ll be strong enough to know. But for now, you will live and you will suffer. But no matter what, know that I will be proud of you and that the love you receive in your time left alive has been earned more than twice fold.”

He leans into her touch as she cups his cheek, chest rising and falling. He presses a hand to the scar across his heart. “I will try not to waste it.”

“Oh, Kravitz.” The hand on his cheek leaves, and pries his own hands away from his chest. She tucks some of his hair behind his ear. “You could never waste it even if you decide to end it all tomorrow.”

He doesn’t say anything to that. He doesn’t have to. She knows what he would have said regardless. If not words, she would know the feeling that he would try and convey, and she would take it in just the same as a thesis on how he feels.

So the Raven Queen sings until the morning comes, and Kravitz listens.

His bones are healed by the time he wakes up to birdsong.

~~_**3\. The key to all doors, found in the room where mirrors show you what will destroy you and stay beside you as you are reborn.** _ ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me blasting my playlist while I proofread: Wow this chapter was kinda depressing lmao
> 
> Me: 
> 
> Me: Wonder when I'm gonna kill Kravitz again
> 
> Items in Istus's/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors


	4. I Don't Like Sand. It's Coarse and Rough and Irritating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “I just like it! Ain’t nothing wrong with that! ‘Sides, you’re a professional! You got this!”
> 
> “Oh, do I? Thank you, June, I was just beginning to doubt myself.”

Five books slam onto the counter in front of Lucretia, startling her out of the book cart she’d been painstakingly reorganizing for the past three hours. Taako leans heavily on the surface next to it, watching her with disinterest. He stifles a yawn against the back of his hand. She notices, but says nothing, in regards to the ink stains replacing his staple gemstone rings. “Man, I forgot that I was the one that kept you from doing this shit your whole shift,” he says, plucking a pen off from her side of the counter, chart levitating towards him with a quick flick of his hand. “I’m returning three of these, checking out two more, and keeping the other two. Good?”

She waves vaguely in his direction. “I don’t care, Taako, take five more if you want. Did you find what you were looking for?” She indicates the returning books. Taako glares at them, hoping against hope that they’d vanish when he turned away.

“No,” he says, lying through his teeth, which, of course, is on par with his usual bullshit, so Lucretia doesn’t bat an eye at him. Nor does she mention the fact that three of his five books from two days ago were all about the pantheon of Gods. Not like he’d be able to explain it to her— other than some bullshit about Istus and bonds, which wasn’t far from the truth, but she also didn’t need to know that. “There’s two horndogs on the second level, by the way. They’re covering a book I need.”

Lucretia sighs heavily and pulls herself to her feet, pausing to crack her back. “You’d think the amped-up security would scare them off,” she grumbles, popping both of her wrists. She squints at the list of books he’s checking out, then back at him. “You wanted the Enchantments and Allures for the Experienced Wizard? I’ll leave it at your usual spot.”

“Toodles,” Taako calls after her as she stalks off to the stairs. He spins on his heel and wanders through rows and rows of tables, the occasional student crying into a book. Fuck, he didn’t miss _that_ . His Transmutation masters was a walk in the park compared to the shit-ton of classes Merle and Davenport had decided he was fit for taking his Freshman year in college-- yes, he’s talking about Topology _Drew_. 

The Components section is about as dead and empty as Taako usually expects it to be. At a glance, around maybe two books are missing, so he figures it’s safe to say that no one in Neverwinter decided to pick up “Transmutation Components Throughout the Ages” by Augusta Maker for some light research. It’s a book that scares away anyone that gets as far as the foreword and, shit, he doesn’t want to sound like Lucretia, but Augusta is such a great author. He remembers making it past the lengthy chapters introducing her textbook on the theory of Transmutation in use with a living person to alter them permanently, only to see jokes at every turn, and a carefree manner to the way she introduces world-shattering concepts. He vividly remembers a chapter almost entirely dedicated to an absolutely filthy rant (really, you’d think a sailor wrote it) about someone telling her that she wouldn’t be able to bring her theory to reality.

Kravitz would love Augusta’s works.

Taako’s hand freezes a millimeter above the spine, hard breaths that would normally wrack his body pushed roughly through his nose until he’s unable to find air to breathe. He closes his eyes, grounds himself by grabbing onto the shelf until his knuckles turn white. 

It had been two days since Taako last spoke with Kravitz. It’s not him probably not being human that impacts him like so, no, it’s the fact that he knows without a doubt that Kravitz is itching to tell him the full picture. Which, sure, would be nice to know, even if he’s started to put the pieces together in the dead of night, his hands clasped tightly across his stomach. But it didn’t take a fool to know that Kravitz himself was dreading it, deflating the moment Taako deflected because, again, not his business.

So He’d wait until Kravitz was ready to come to him.

Taako lets out a long sigh through his mouth, pulling the book from the shelf and taking the rest of the stack Lucretia had so helpfully organized for him based on the unspoken order they’d agreed on; the books Taako had rented the most at the bottom, least at the top. She makes him promise to come out for tea with her one day, which he does so easily. He adores those little cakes to pieces. 

Two days shouldn’t feel as long as it did.

Despite this he finds himself waiting for a message, a call, _anything_ , even as he’s hauling his heavy stack of books up the stairs and undoing the wards on the front door with practiced ease. It’s idyllic of him, and something he’d tease Lup for doing (and he did before she got over herself and got with Barry), but would never touch with a ten-foot pole himself. Until fucking _now_ , apparently.

He lets out a wistful sigh at the memory of Kravitz like a lovesick idiot, leaning across the counter at the Davey Lamp just a week ago while he tells Taako about a particularly rude customer from earlier that day. Kravitz had smiled wide enough, then, that all he had to do was reach out and press either of his thumbs into the dimples on his cheeks. Just to know the feel of them, the shape of him.

“Why didn’t you tell me about your adventures, sir?” comes the high voice of Satan _himself_ sitting criss-cross applesauce on the center of the couch. Taako yells and nearly drops all of his books, stumbling to keep the top of the stack where it was. Angus makes no move to apologize for scaring him half to death, flipping to the next page of his dumb divination book. More blue text appears on the blank page. “It’s very rude of you.”

“First of all, fuck you for not telling me you got back early,” Taako says, dumping his books unceremoniously onto the coffee table and reaching out with both hands to muss his hair. “Second of all, have you maybe considered not poking your head into everyone’s business, boychik?”

Angus glances up from his book, shrugs. “From time to time. You should call Kravitz, by the way. He misses you.” Taako groans, ignoring the disgusting mix of indignation and longing that bubbles up his stomach. 

He drapes himself dramatically across the couch, half-leaning against Angus. “When Lup gets home, we’re going to have a talk with you about your spying habits, little man.” He pulls out his stone, thumb hovering just over Kravitz’s frequency. And he waits. And waits. His pulse racing, heart pounding against his chest, breath caught in his throat because he’s never been the one to do… this, you know? Lay around waiting for a text, giggling and dancing around like a schoolgirl who just got asked to dance by her crush of years. He’s never found himself really, truly caring.

He shouldn’t do this.

He’ll put his phone away, move on with his life, and forget Kravitz. It’s settled. Done and buried. 

A small hand reaches into Taako’s view and connects the stone to Kravitz’s frequency. “Angus what the _fuck_!” He shouts, reeling back and almost throwing his stone, but the nervous cough on the other end of the frequency stops him with his arm thrown behind his head. His arm falls limp at his side, head tilting to the ceiling. He very stubbornly avoids looking at Angus, instead reaching out to feel the wards on the apartment, aching and longing for some security to ground him. “Hey, Krav.” His voice doesn’t sound like his own, stuck in a whisper too fond and too vulnerable.

“Hi,” he says, and his voice is hoarse, like he’d grated his vocal cords on a cheese grater some point in the past two days “Hang on-- Ren, tell June I’ll be a minute--” there’s a distinct clang of someone slamming a pan against a metal counter, and the creak of a swinging door.

“Hold on, you’re at _work_? Don’t you only have like, two functioning limbs right now?” Kravitz laughs, a high and strained sound that only settles nausea in Taako. Fake laughs from Kravitz were bearable, but this one wasn’t like that, didn’t reflect the same emotion. He’s guarded, tense and hiding his cards to his chest with metaphorical hands.

“It’s uh… It’s complicated. Most things about me are, these days.” Angus goes back to his book, cross-referencing the predictions with the notes on whatever case he’s already started work on. Taako catches his name written here and there on the other page. Kravitz sighs. “Which is what I’m guessing you called to talk about.”

“We can do that later. On _your_ terms. I’m more interested in why you just like, accepted that it’s normal to see me in the same weird fucking places you go, but it’s your business, stud, not mine.” Taako pulls dried ink out from under his nails, his upper lip twitching with disgust. “And I _know_ it kills you to not tell the truth for five fucking seconds, but for real, Krav. I don’t care, and it doesn’t change my opinion of you. But you’ve _got_ to tell me how you got those casts off.”

When Kravitz starts speaking, Taako can hear the smile in his voice. He sinks slowly into the couch, limbs falling limp. Kravitz details about how Ren knows a guy who knows a guy who knows a cleric that only speaks in Dwarven (she was an elf, which he insisted Taako had to know just for the mental image) who owned a buzzsaw and had contacts that could get his medical record changed accordingly. Angus mutters something about that not being safe at all, to which he gets a laugh, and reassurances that Ren knows her stuff and hello, Angus, it’s lovely to meet you, which is good and all but Taako needs to know if this shit was legal.

“Well…. I don’t think so?” Kravitz says, sounding rather unsure. A small creak and, “Hey, Ren? Was Asena’s deal legal? Oh, shit, really? Yeah, it was super illegal.”

“Oh fuck yeah! Stick it to the man!” Taako cackles, abandoning Angus on the couch in favor for wandering into the kitchen in search of an almond butter and jelly sandwich because _someone_ told Barry that he and Lup have been eating peanut butter, stabbing themselves with an EpiPen, and going to Merle for healing for years now. Fucking snitches, man. 

Kravitz lets out an unsteady breath. “Hey, Taako?” He makes an affirmative noise as he slathers jelly onto the bread. “You said on my terms. I don’t-- I don’t think I’ll ever be able to do it if it’s on my terms, but you knowing… it’s-- it would make things easier, I think. On me, I mean. I don’t want to lie to you about _this_ any more than I have to.”

Taako methodically cuts the crusts off of Angus’s sandwich. He doesn’t like the taste of them, he’d said once, and Taako _could_ pretend he doesn’t care about what the kid tells him, but it’s been years since they met. And if Angus calls him soft for doing this for him now, he can go eat shit. “Okay.” He looks up from the cutting board. “Meet me at Shots and Pots tomorrow night at six-thirty.”

“Can I ask why _there_ specifically?” There’s a lilt to his voice, laughter in the way syllables fall from his perfect lips. It’s a stark contrast from the solemn truth that fell from him the same way vomit leaves Taako’s throat after long hours spent curled up in his bed, clutching at his stomach. Slow, painful, and then all at once.

“You’ll see.”

**✧**

Taako walks down the halls outside his apartment with a bat swinging loose in his hand, satin pants and robe shifting in the moonlight drifting through the windows at the end of the halls. He stops abruptly at Carey and Killian’s apartment, stifling a yawn against his free hand while he hits the bat roughly against the door frame. After a brief shuffle on the other side, Carey swings the door open, clawed hand rubbing at her tired eyes. Giving him a once over and quirking a brow at the bat, she steps back and lets him in. An empty pizza box is turned over onto the carpet with a towel covering a suspicious stain. On their couch is a hulking mass, rumbling snores shaking the floor and drool trailing down into a hairy beard.

It’s one in the morning. He has a date with Kravitz in seventeen hours. 

With this in mind, he hits Magnus in the gut as hard as he can with his baseball bat. Magnus flails, throwing the blankets up in an attempt to get him to his feet in enough time to punch his attacker in the face which was good and all, but Taako’s been around the block, so he just takes a few steps back and watches him fall flat on his back. Dark eyes blink blearily up at him, slow and unfocused. “ _Why_?” He asks, squinting. The layers of confusion in his voice would make Taako break into laughter if he was in a better mood. Or if it was like, five hours later.

Taako doesn’t wait to see if Magnus is following him when he leaves, fishing the spare key to Davenport and Merle’s apartment from the depths of his pocket. He doesn’t try to muffle the door when it slams open and feels no guilt when he spies Mookie sleeping on the pull-out couch, if only because the twerp could sleep through the end of the world. Besides, the son of a bitch ate his last pair of slippers. Davenport, meanwhile, comes bursting out of his bedroom at the end of the hall, halfway through a spell incantation when he sees Taako backlit in the doorway. He lowers his wand with a sigh that moves through his whole body.

“I… I think we need Merle?” Magnus says, looking down at Taako for confirmation. Taako lifts his shoulders a fraction. Davenport grumbles, hits his head on the doorframe, and vanishes out of sight. Mavis appears in her doorway across the hall from Davenport and Merle’s room, adjusting her glasses and yawning wide. She takes one look at the lethal look in Taako’s eyes and the bat in his hand and goes back to bed. Merle comes out not a second after, wearing a ratty T-Shirt over nothing but his underwear, and calf-high weed socks with unicorn slippers on. You know, the sort that opens their mouths when you walk.

  
Taako’s lips curl in disgust at the sight of what Merle calls appropriate sleepwear, pulling a porcelain statue of a small human child hugging a llama from his bag of holding. He sets it on Merle’s floor as he approaches, glances once at Mookie’s sleeping form, and smashes the statue to smithereens with the bat with the anger of a thousand wronged souls. Glitter shoots wildly out from the remains, blinding them from the rest of their surroundings.

When it clears, they’re standing on a beach with charcoal sands, dark ocean water reaching as far as the eye can see, with bright lights dancing underneath the surface. Constellations of long-dead stars are in the sky, twinkling the same as the souls in the Astral sea. When Taako releases the tension from his shoulders, a cloud comes out of his nose as if he were in a tundra, instead of a warm beach with the souls of the dead, thick atmosphere wrapped around him and coddling him.

“I fucking hate you, dude,” he says, voice raw and groggy. His face mask shifts as he talks, the shift in temperature as he does so sending shivers down his spine. 

Istus laughs, her voice echoing across the plane. “I know. Just hurry up and you’ll get your beauty sleep in no time. She keeps it in her treasury.”

Taako cracks his neck and sets off in the direction opposite from the Astral Sea, Merle already five steps ahead of him and his feet already wet and sloshing about in his slippers. He adjusts the glasses on his nose, stopping abruptly. “Just checking, but you guys can’t see the super big fucking doors here, right?” He asks, reaching his wooden arm out until the palm rests flat against empty air.

“What, you can’t?” Magnus asks. Merle shoots him a look at the same time the sound of a heavy door groaning open bounces off of the thick air all around them. Merle’s arm vanishes past his elbow, then his shoulder, then the rest of him. “Oh what the fuck?”

Stepping into the threshold of the Raven Queen’s palace feels different compared to emerging from the Astral Sea. Dread settles into the pit of Taako’s stomach, a deep-seated wrong enveloping him. Whispers float past his ears, a woman’s soft voice detailing all of his sins against the dead while more cry out that he feels wrong, that he has treaded upon waters that no mortal should wander. He presses the part of his face mask that peeled up off of his jaw down and follows the rows of torches. 

The Raven Queen’s Palace doesn’t work the way it should. This is the first fact that any person looking into the afterlife learns.

The second is that if you were to make it there alive, you wouldn’t experience it with all of your senses. This is something that Howard Franz found out when he legally died for half an hour after he got high out of his mind and decided to try astral projection.

So Taako feels Kravitz before he hears him, the same way that Merle can smell the sulfur hanging in the air, and Magnus sees a dark figure with eyes, eyes, and wings sprouted from their head before he can taste charcoal.

If you asked Taako, and, given you were Lup or Angus (who would figure it out regardless of what he said), he’d tell you that Kravitz feels like warmth and belonging, despite the ice that hangs off of him.

He’d tell you that _hearing_ him felt like his sins were on a scale, set up beside all of the good that only weighs as much as a dove’s feather. Kravitz's voice echoes in the same way that Istus’s does, piercing through the thick air and sending flickers of a wind that none of them can feel through the torches lining the walls. A woman responds, soft, low, and joined by fourteen different voices that are also her own. Magnus lets out a noise of shock thirty seconds before Taako sees the gaping awning of the entrance to the Raven Queen’s throne room. Taako, however, views the entire scene upside down and catches the top of his own head in the second it takes him to look ahead. 

Kravitz sits on the arm of the throne, holding a jar of golden and glittering nail polish in one hand, the other diligently painting an elven woman’s nails. The feathers that make up her hair are twisted over her shoulder into a flowing braid, golden eyes looking down at Kravitz with a kind smile and unblinking eyes.

The third thing you learn about the Astral Plane is that each person’s perspective on death warps how you see her. Kravitz, for example, sees a woman that he knows for certain he’s never met before. This woman is the same one that Taako and Lup see. Only, they know that they’ve met her because they see their Auntie, warped and shifted into a kind goddess with raven feathers for hair and kind eyes that see past the masks you wear. To them, death is familiar, warmth, home, but more importantly, death is temporary. “You’ll be _fine_ ,” says the goddess that wears his auntie’s face.

Kravitz purses his lips. A white raven nips at his hair. He opens his mouth to respond at the same time Magnus drags Taako from the doorway by his arm. “Do you _want_ us to get caught?” He hisses into his ear, rushing to catch up with Merle at the end of the hall. “That’s a _literal_ goddess! And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather not get chased down or questioned by that cloud of nightmares!”

So. Fourth thing about the Astral plane?

Not everyone can see the drifters.

It’s not a term that Taako knows readily, or something that even existed until he brought it into reality years later, but Kravitz wasn’t the only drifter he met after that, so it’s also not like it wasn’t an unwarranted thing to coin and research. Get off his dick, _Jared_. 

Anyway. The drifters don’t exist in the same way that they do, being the literal living beings traipsing through the Astral Plane like it was just another Tuesday. Their souls are attuned, drawn naturally to the planes of gods that have touched them. There’s no logical way for their souls to go searching for the gods and their planes during their waking moments, bodies unable to pass through the barriers in the same way emissaries can, so their souls wait until the host falls asleep to go to the gods. 

  
There’s a theory that Taako develops, these years later when he decides to research drifters. Why he could always see Kravitz even when other emissaries can’t. Lup would make some joke about how they’re soulmates, which Taako now would hate how sickeningly soft that sounds, but Taako later would tell Lup that’s not far off.

Because, see, bonds connect everything.

And every one.

“Can you guys hear the whispers too?” Magnus asks when they catch up to Merle, “It’s like, really unsettling, right?”

Taako shrugs. “She’s just telling me that I’m tainted because I’ve been touched by dark magic,” he says, turning sharply to a gilded door. He glances down to Istus’s list, ignores the little doodle of a lich dabbing, and double-checks the little arrows that they _think_ are directions. She wouldn't tell them if it was that or the steps to a Fantasy DDR game one of them would play sometime in the future. “which, like, no biggie, we all knew that shit.”

The door creaks open before any of them can touch it. Merle laughs nervously at the same time Taako takes a good five steps back. Magnus takes two forward. “Guys, it's fine,” he says, smiling over his shoulder. “No traps.”

“How the fuck do _you_ know that?” Taako calls from where he’s safely tucked behind a black pillar. Wiggling his fingers, Magnus backs slowly into the room. Taako rolls his eyes and huffs because of _course_ he has a fucking proficiency for finding traps. The door doesn’t shut behind him as Taako expects. Instead, he leans out and sees the glittering gold of The Raven Queen’s treasury. 

Okay, so dying in that room might not be so bad, Taako decides. He makes it inside the treasury before Merle could even pass the threshold. “We’re looking for a necklace and some sapphires!” He calls out, already up to his elbows in jewelry and gold. He misses Lup, for a moment, as the glittering precious metals and jewels reflect light into his eyes. She would have loved this, would have loved seeing how much she could sneak off with. But, well, Lup isn't here, and Taako is, so. Gotta make due, you know?

Merle slaps a particularly gorgeous choker out of Taako’s hand at the same moment he pockets a pair of earrings. He makes a sound of indignation, makes a point to flail a bit. “Stop stealing from goddesses.” Magnus keeps an eye on Taako’s back as he moves on to the pile of gemstones, grumbling and pouting to himself.

As he fishes out a diamond-shaped sapphire, he realizes with a jolt that Istus could have stopped him from taking the earrings, if she wanted to. Like, logically speaking here, she’s aware of every decision Taako makes and how that spirals into his future, so the only way he can be sure is to--

“Don’t even think about it, Taako.”

He throws his hands up into the air. “This is bullshit!”

“So it’s bullshit if I want to keep my girlfriend from hating you? Huh, Taako? You think that’s bullshit?” Istus says, with the inflection of a dad that’s ‘not mad, just disappointed’. Taako, who has never had a dad, is rightly perplexed by how that tone alone can make him feel guilty. 

Needless to say, Taako didn’t try to steal anything after that. 

Merle finds the necklace, which Magnus declares was cheating if and only if in part because the glasses Istus gave him had true sight. Taako reassures Magnus that that’s not how magic fucking works at all. 

Taako’s sight leaves him for the amount of time it takes for them to get out of the Raven Queen’s palace. He feels Magnus holding onto him tight and Merle holding onto the end of Taako’s robe, leading them out, but can’t hear their voices. He feels hands that hold no substance trying to grab onto his limbs, desperate, pleading for him to save them. Cold caresses his lips, gentle and tender in a way that feels like home, but it only serves to unsettle Taako because he doesn't like the cold. The whispers grow and their voices raise until they’re yelling, no longer about his sins, but how they have to subject to her divine punishment, how they must atone but never be forgiven, this sin cannot be forgiven, you are complicit with their crimes, you are _wrong,_ only he whom I care for above all other mortals keeps you from damnation, the magic you cast has been tainted, stained black by those around you--

Taako blinks, and he sees the Astral sea sprawling out in front of him. A clock chimes, somewhere behind him. Magnus lets go of Taako’s arm, and Merle wheezes from somewhere behind him. “What the fuck?” He asks, and his voice sounds distant as if he’s just a bystander watching himself move and talk. Again, “what the fuck?”

“I hate this place,” Magnus says, breathless. Taako nods his agreement, face numb. He drops to his knees and digs in the sand until phantom blood pours from his fingernails and the porcelain statue that brought them here surfaces, translucent and held together by threads. He pulls the bat out of one of the loops in his robe. 

A raven’s shrill caw echoes through the Astral Plane when Taako shatters the stature of the child hugging a llama. Something about it terrifies Taako, puts a primal fear for someone in his stomach, but he doesn't know why. The charcoal sands kick up dust all around them, the ground slowly morphing until his feet are under solid ground again, and the distant sounds of city nightlife fill the uncomfortable silence.

Mavis is sitting next to Mookie’s sleeping form, reading under the mage light that Davenport keeps alight with an outstretched hand. Merle plops himself down next to them while Taako stalks out of the apartment and back to his own. Magnus whispers to Carey and Killian before they can even wake up fully to greet him, their door clicking shut silently. 

Taako’s apartment, meanwhile, is silent and dead. He knows Angus is still asleep in Taako’s room, where he’d dozed off reading one of his dumb detective books. He doesn’t think he’d want to deal with his energetic poking and prodding so early in the morning.

So instead he toes open Lup’s door, robe left abandoned on the doorknob. Barry’s glasses are left askew, a book resting on his chest. Tucked against his side and talking in her sleep is Lup, wearing the shirt from the satin pajama set that Taako’s currently wearing the pants to. A mage hand marks Barry’s page and puts both the book and glasses onto the nightstand. Taako pokes Lup’s shoulder until she moves onto her back, fixing him with a tired, disoriented glare. She doesn’t complain or protest after her vision clears, holding the edge of the duvet up with an arm. They’re both asleep before his head can hit the pillow.

Taako dreams about a white raven singing sweetly to a blue moon.

  1. ~~_A necklace to adorn my neck, left barren from the centuries in which I did not love her so, and gems so I may let the rest of the planar system know her beauty as I have always said it to be so._~~



**⋆✧⋆**

Kravitz won a game of cards on the morning of his meeting with Taako.

Normally, he would have bet cash, and anyone else playing would have followed his lead. Instead, he leans back in his chair and takes a long sip of coffee while those gathered at table eleven collectively groan and throw their cards down in exasperation, frustration, or acceptance. This time, Kravitz entered with only two terms and a smile on his face.

  
If he won, Ren would close for him, and Johann would delay that night’s rehearsal in the event that he didn’t make it back by seven P.M. If he lost to anyone at the table, regardless of whether or not they worked at the Davy Lamp or with his symphony, they’d have to give him new terms. June later complained that this was just a courtesy, supported by one vital, important truth of the game.

Kravitz didn’t have a plan for if he lost.

“You’ve got to be cheating,” Ren says, pointing a finger accusingly at him. Avi shakes his head, downing the mojito he arrived with.

“No, listen, I’ve known this dude for years, and I’ve never seen him lose a bet. Not once.” He nudges Johann with an elbow. “Right?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah.” Johann stopped trying to beat Kravitz four years ago. He never knew why, just that he'd somehow figured out the _inner workings of his mind_. whatever that meant. Kravitz couldn't care less, though they have gotten around to finally dusting off the old chess set Kravitz's grandparents left to him and playing it, he misses the drunken bets between the two of them. “Dude’s a powerhouse.”

An hour later Johann and Avi are gone, and June is back behind the counter cleaning glasses and singing along to the music playing from the overhead stereo. Kravitz makes idle chat with Mrs. Callahan, the only consistent regular that he’s seen ever since he started working as a server at the Davy Lamp. A lovely woman, all things considered, always asking after him and insisting that he serve her. She has two daughters, three grandchildren, and insists that her grandson is an artistic prodigy. The only roadblock that he’s encountered with her is--

“Any ladies in your life yet, dearie?”

It’s like clockwork. Once a week, every three weeks, Mrs. Callahan will come in and ask about whether or not Kravitz has a girlfriend. He considers it a nice change from her trying to set him up with one of her daughters. He never got around to figuring out how to tell her that he’d never in his life want a girlfriend in a polite and kind manner, so that was his life. Eventually, Kravitz realized that he could respond with, “Only My Queen, Mrs. Callahan,” and she’d leave it alone, and he'd thank the Raven Queen for her aid.

Except for today.

“Why there’s got to be _someone_ ,” she insists, primly adjusting the napkin across her lap. The perfect face of innocence, if innocence was planning something. “You’ve been positively radiant lately.”

Eyes sparkling under tourmaline, smile blinding and toothy, a hand pressed against the surface of a mirror, hot chocolate in his hands, soft touches and soft words when he thinks no one is listening, kind to those who matter and scalding to everyone else to keep himself safe, charming, twirling, laughing and snorting-- “No, Mrs. Callahan. There’s no one.”

The lie weighs heavy on him for the next three hours until Ren rushes out of the kitchen to shove a spoon into his mouth and talk at fifty miles a minute about what she made and whether or not he thinks they should add it to the menu. Kravitz taps his chin thoughtfully and suggests adding it as the next special of the month despite the part of him that wants to pull her leg and tell her it tastes like shit. He’s never been able to insult her cooking in the way Taako did once, good-naturedly and smiling when she punches him and calls him an ass. She makes a high noise in the back of her throat, pats his shoulder roughly, and races off to work the logistics out with June. 

When the breakfast rush slows, Kravitz plays the piano while June pulls Paloma, Luca, and some resting patrons to the space behind him to dance. Her laughter is bright and airy, skirt twirling as Luca spins her and she spins Paloma. The customers can't help to smile with her, the happiness infectious enough to get Mr. Anders, the most sour man Kravitz had ever met, to laugh. Eventually, they filter out, one by one, but June stays the longest, breathless and grinning from ear to ear.

The workers at the Davy Lamp say that it’s been years since June last smiled, ever since Refuge got torn from their time loop. She was at the center of it all, the only one to remember everything when they reset, kept frozen in place by the magic that made the town sick, helpless and unable to close her eyes while the town gets destroyed and she gets crushed under a rock. Paloma once spoke the names of the saviors of Refuge, a footnote on the tragedy at the time. Kravitz hadn’t thought of them, not really, until it really mattered to think of them.

He wonders if Magnus and Julia Burnsides know that a handful of Refuge’s old citizens ended up in the same town as them. 

Kravitz finds himself thanking Istus that she sent them June’s way so that she could be here now, smiling and happy and without a care in the world. She rests heavily against the side of the piano, arms folded onto the top of it and chin resting on them, smiling down at him. “I’ll make you some hot chocolate before you leave if you play La Campanella for me,” she says, holding a hand out to him. Sighing, he reaches out and shakes on it with her, cursing June for knowing just how weak he is for some good chocolate.

“I feel like you only make me play this song because you hate me,” he calls after her, leaning back far enough to see her stick her tongue out at him.

“I just like it! Ain’t nothing wrong with that! ‘Sides, you’re a professional! You got this!”

“Oh, do I? Thank you, June, I was just beginning to doubt myself.” He laughs when she throws her towel at him, immediately putting on her Customer Face when a woman sits down at the bar in front of her. When he returns to his tables, he’s back to smiling, chatting idly with the patrons and giving suggestions for what they should order when prompted. Paloma vanishes into the kitchen and makes Luca take over her tables, emerging forty minutes later with a basket full of warm scones. She mechanically passes them out to every single person in the Davy Lamp with a wink and the occasional vague warning.

For Kravitz, she curls his fingers around the scone, leans in, and whispers, “do not use the red paint,” before scampering off. Which, admittedly, was kind of a weird thing to say to your coworker, but hey. Kravitz takes Paloma’s prophecies at face value, and the fact of the matter was, she was the only thing keeping him from making himself look a fool in front of Taako. 

“Who put Johanns mixtape on!” Ren shouts, head poking out through the serving hatch. 

“Wasn't me!” Kravitz calls back at her with a grin across his face. “But you gotta admit, he makes some good tunes!”

“He plays it _all_ the time though! Someone turn it off or y’all are just fixing to get slapped!”

Roswell flutters off down the hall and a minute later emerges on June’s shoulder. The stereos go quiet. Chatter picks up around the diner, and Kravitz pulls plates from the serving hatch. Ren sticks her tongue out at him, which does little but earn her a huff and an eye roll. “I’ll be out of here in half an hour,” he says to June as he passes her, “I don’t care if Redmond doesn’t show up to take over.”

She waves him off, still talking animatedly to Roswell. Redmond does, in fact, show up, but gets an earful from Luca when he does, exactly three minutes late. They argue for a good five minutes while Kravitz stashes away his apron and fetches his stone. When he comes back, June is dragging them both by the ear, and the thermos Taako gave him is sitting on the counter, filled to the brim with hot chocolate.

Kravitz had spent his break arguing with Ren about the logistics of going home to change. At some point, they realized that they were going to a pottery painting shop and Kravitz has a... record, of sorts, and they agreed that maybe going in his work clothes would be best. This would later lead to Kravitz now tying up his hair and admiring his pristine crimson eyeliner, courtesy of a white raven that, for once in the past fifteen years, didn’t watch him with unblinking eyes or speak from a tightly sealed beak. 

It’s only when he’s halfway across town that he begins to panic.

**✧**

Kravitz entirely expected to be waiting for Taako for about half an hour. Instead, he stops dead on the cobblestone sidewalk in front of Shots and Pots, blinking away the briefest flicker of an illusion clouding Taako’s eyes. Without the mirage shifting and shimmering over him, Kravitz can clearly see the dark circles under his eyes, and the foundation that failed to cover them. His hair sticks up high, braided and kept together by the wand shoved straight through the top of the bun. He’s filing his nails absently, though he falters when Kravitz enters his peripheral. “Took your time,” he quips, giving him a once-over before nodding in approval, smiling minutely at him. A ghost of the thing, but still there nonetheless. “Work hold you up?” 

Kravitz reminds himself to breathe. Bites the inside of his cheek as if that would will away the warmth in his cheeks and the pounding in his chest. But then, if he forces the good that Taako elicits from him, he would never be able to savor his sparkling eyes and radiant smile. So he scratches at the nape of his neck instead, glancing to the sidewalk. “Something like that.” 

Taako lingers, his nail file gone but palms still upturned, as he surveys the patrons inside. “It’s vase night,” he says idly, squinting when he meets the gaze of a blue Dragonborn and orc couple, who grin with knowing in their eyes and wave at them with reckless abandon. He rolls his eyes at them. Taako seems to know more people in Neverwinter than he doesn’t. His nose scrunches, upper lip pulled into a distasteful grimace as he glares disdainfully at the instructor. “Last time I went here with Lucretia on Vodka night; they were doing bowls. Never felt like painting a bowl. A vase is better, more versatile.”

He, of course, does not elaborate on the numerous uses for vases, swinging the glass door wide open and gesturing for Kravitz to go in. He does, and without a word, still trying to piece together what one would put in a vase if not flowers. So far, he’s only come up with paintbrushes. But no sensible person would—

“I’m going to put my brushes in this,” says the dragon born with the brightest, most proud smile Kravitz has ever seen. The orc woman nods solemnly and suggests pasta instead, and he decides he’s had enough of eavesdropping for the night.

Taako brandishes the tequila with the relish of a man seeking immortality and finding it, gesturing to the empty seats and elegant vases before them. The instructor begins to laze about the room, and almost simultaneously, every patron takes a shot. “You asked me why I picked here,” he says, smoothing out his apron and picking up a brush. When Kravitz nods, “tonight’s date night, but consequently, it’s also tequila night. And listen, Krav, you only go to Shots and Pots on tequila night to get blackout drunk. Anyone listening won’t have the mind to remember by the morning, or they can’t exactly hear us over—“

“—Someone put on Fantasy Shakira!” Shouts a man in the corner, his date swatting at him as raucous laughter racks their shoulders. Shouts erupt across the room, drowning out whatever the Instructor’s response is.

Oh.

That’s _clever_.

Just one more thing for Kravitz to adore about him. 

Biting his lip to keep back a smile, he holds out a hand for a shot. Taako supplies graciously, before downing a quarter of the bottle himself. “Also, you know,” he says, leaning in close enough to be heard, which just means his breath is hot on his ears and Queen take him this man is going to be the death of him, “figured you’d rather be drunk for this.”

The tequila burns, makes him long for the wines back at home, and Kravitz chokes, but he manages a weak little smile for him. “Thank you.” 

Kravitz quickly finds out that painting while tipsy is the most frustrating experience of his life, mostly because he can’t keep his hand still. But focusing on his handiwork means he gets a distraction, which means that he can talk without worrying about what he means. “I— Okay. So, it’s better to go…back. You remember my dreams?” Taako nods. “They’re not dreams. Not really, I mean. It’s complicated, I guess? I’ve been told they’re not dreams, just a reconstruction of memories blocked from me, but since I can’t reach them, I’m only left with vague sensations and gaps filled in during my waking hours.”

“Care to elaborate, bones?” He asks, voice airy and hands trembling. And so Kravitz does. He begins with the context, because to him, Taako must know. Nights spent lying awake and hanging upon every aspect of his life that could have caught the Raven Queen's favor tends to do that, see.

The rest will follow when his tongue loosens with liquor.

“My parents died when I was young; too young to remember them. My uncle took me in for a few years, taught me the basics of music and gave me my first violin, but then he was taken too. It was irony or some joke of Istus’ doing, I’ve come to believe, that the plague that took them would skip me, and instead turn me to the temples of the Raven Queen.” He shrugs his shoulder, ignores the look that Taako gives him. Normally, he would relish it, because for once in his life he wasn’t met with pity, but understanding. It was a conversation to be had much later, why they shared this similar and yet vastly different experience. But for now, Taako remains passive, and Kravitz worries his vase with hands that shake in tune with his rapid pulse. “My grandparents found me in the temple of the Raven Queen, just outside Phandalin. They died sixteen years ago.”

Kravitz breathes in deep, holds the breath, and releases it.

It’s a gift, he thinks, that his heart stops beating before the anxious pulsing becomes too much for him to bear.

“And I died fifteen years ago, pursuing my dreams at my grandfather’s dying wish. A group of up and coming necromancers took me, and the rest is history.”

Taako’s hands freeze, and he gives him a dazzling smile. “I’m sorry, don’t think I heard you right.”

Kravitz sighs, rubs at his temples. “I went missing, fifteen years ago. You said Angus keeps tabs on you when he’s away? He would know that much. You might, too, now that I think about it. Not important. I went missing, woke up in the middle of a lovely circle of dead necromancers, and got myself to the nearest tavern.”

“But you seem pretty fucking alive to me?”

“Oh, didn’t you hear? I got better.”

Kravitz’s vase looks gaudy, a shitty combination of blues and whites and yellows that don’t seem to match in retrospect, but he can't find it in him to care. Distantly, he thinks of how much uglier it would have been with red in the mix. Taako’s, meanwhile, is painted to perfection. He’s in the middle of transmuting paint into gold leaf when the instructor scolds him, shoves brushes into his hand, and saunters off. Taako scoffs, and with the blink of an eye hot pink acrylic turns into a neat stack of shimmering gold. “Okay, sure, you got better. Doesn’t explain why you can get thrown through lava no problem but a broken bone or two wrecks your shit.”

“The Raven Queen is quite fond of deals,” he says instead of outright explaining himself out of the gate. “Supposedly, I made a bet and won. ‘Course, I only figured that out a few weeks ago. Now I work as an emissary for my Queen, my life forfeit to hers and my will her own from now until the end of time.”

Taako leans over and grabs onto Kravitz’s hand, guiding it to the vase to help him correct shaky line work. If he wasn’t so focused on getting his words right, he would have had the mind to blush and stutter. “So the eyes...?” He asks with practiced ease. The flicker of his ears tells Kravitz otherwise, but like most of Taako’s other tells, he leaves it be. But there was something wrong in the way Taako reacted, something that takes Kravitz a second to piece together. He rubs his chin when the pieces fall together, glancing in his direction.

Taako didn't seem the least bit surprised to know that he was an emissary.

“...Are a gift from her, yes. As is the cloak. Eyes to see, feathers to shield me from the mystical, that sort of stuff.” Taako shifts, looking rather smug with the paint now smeared on Kravitz’s hands. He sobers when he returns to his work, tucking flyaway hairs behind his pointed ear.

“I’m an emissary, too. Figured we should just lay this out there.” He doesn’t meet his gaze as he says this, squinting at the dragon born as she sets her vase on fire, much to the dismay of the instructor and enthused cheers of essentially every other patron. 

Kravitz inclines his head. The reader in him, the one that’s seen scenes such as this play out too many times to count, decides that secrecy has no room in the shots and pots. Also, he’s currently the sort of drunk where he’s smiling openly and bright without any reason why. “I knew that already. Don’t-- don’t look at me like that, it doesn’t suit you-- I was in Istus’s realm and caught the tail end of a conversation. Nothing big, but enough for me to connect the dots that my Queen wouldn’t. You talk to her using this ring,” he says, tapping on the pink gem on Taako’s thumb. Lights shift under his brief touch, a flicker of blues turning it a lovely lavender before fading back to pink. “Right?”

Taako looks flabbergasted, and rightfully so, in Kravitz’s opinion, considering it blends in perfectly with the rest of his usual rings. While he sputters and curses and slaps Kravitz’s shoulder, an overwhelming fondness takes hold of his heart, now beating again. “What the fuck! No, no,” he corrects himself, pressing a fingernail against Kravitz’s chest accusingly, “ _how_ the fuck do you know? And don’t you try and lie to me I’ll fucking see through your bullshit even if you give me one of your dumb little smiles.”

Kravitz gives him a small smile anyway because an angry Taako very much reminds him of a cat in water. Disgruntled, hating the world, but with no actual intent to harm. “I can read minds now. All dead people can, you see, except they’re dead so the point’s a bit muddled.” No swipes at his shoulders and vulgar protests follow. Instead, he finds Taako worrying his bottom lip, eyes darting back and forth across empty air as if trying to read the text of his memories.

“It’s the eyes,” he says when the silence nears unbearable, eyes wide and wild. There’s no question in the way he phrases it, only confidence and certainty. This is, of course, supported by the loud and anxious snapping that accompanies his next words, “You see what the Raven Queen sees! All Emissaries encompass their deity in some way, something to keep the flow of the arcane energy stable. Istus doesn’t need to give us a bond because we’re still alive and we don’t really use any magic she’d find useful, but Merle has an arm from Pan, and you have your whole bucket of little oddities!”

If they were anywhere but a pottery shop, Taako would have started pacing by now. Instead, his leg bobs up and down against the floor as he works with one hand, gesturing vaguely with the other. He’s speaking too fast for Kravitz to keep up, now, but he catches ‘dreams’ and ‘heart’ thrown somewhere in the mix. His ramblings end when Kravitz wraps a hand around his arm, gently lowering it until their palms meet. “Taako, calm down,” he says, still smiling. “You can analyze everything that my Queen gave me and what it means another day. That’s part of why I wanted you to know; a feeling tells me we’ll keep meeting when our goddesses delegate us our work.”

A stark contrast to the couples laughing loud and shouting across the room to what friends they recognize, Kravitz and Taako keep their heads ducked together as they work, with smiles only meant for the other, even if the conversation swiftly shifts from emissary work. Taako goes on in length about how nosy Angus has been as of late (“I bet you he already knew your whole deal, too!” “I mean, anyone could if they knew what to look for. It’s somewhere in the Phandalin Gazette’s archives.”), and in turn Kravitz tells him of June’s aspirations for magic. They agree that they’d get on like a house on fire and that June should go into abjuration, all things considered. This is, of course, how Kravitz discovers that Taako and his family spent ten years going around Faerun working as adventurers, helping anyone that needed it.

“We called ourselves the Red Robes because none of us could figure out how to work Starblaster into the name,” Taako explains. Downs a shot of tequila and grimaces. “Wore these spiffy uniforms and all that, running around like we’d just lost our heads. Most of us had just finished our degrees, and Magnus was on some weird fitness kick that no one could really shake him out of and Davenport was going crazy after he retired so we just... went to town. The work was exhausting, too, but I just kept doing it.” 

Kravitz abandons his vase, deeming it a failure and a disgrace all in one. He nearly laughs at his joke about connecting the vase to himself but remembers himself in the last seconds and coughs instead. “Why?”

“Because I didn’t have anyone else. No one else would want the me that existed then, or the one I am now.” Taako shrugs off the blunt and edged truth of his words like it was just another Tuesday, and Kravitz finds himself reeling from the force in which it stabs into his chest. Both from the admission of something Taako would normally dance around, and the fact that he could ever contemplate someone not wanting him around. “It gave me purpose. Not the doing good part-- fucking hilarious image, me going out of my way to save lives-- but the journeying. Seeing new places with the time to stop and actually enjoy it, you know?”

Kravitz did know. But he doesn’t say this, only hums a low note until the paint flakes off of his skin and onto the floor. “Lup likes to say it made me a better person but I call bullshit on that.” Taako scoffs. “A better person, she says. All I got out of those ten years were five journals worth of research into lost languages, a warrant for my arrest in Goldcliff, and Angus. By the way, never bring up knowing me in Goldcliff, Phandalin, and Glamour Springs. Like, don’t even think about me unless you want to pay off the price of my head there.”

“So long as you never utter my family name in Rockport,” he says good-naturedly, tension pulling his brows close as he worries over the acidity in Taako’s voice as he mentioned Glamour Springs. But he doesn’t press. Not now. "Rumor has it that we’re notorious for starting pub brawls.”

“You've started brawls?” Taako all but shouts, reeling back in his seat only to yelp and throw himself forward when his stool nearly flips over. Kravitz only winks at him, which turns him into a lovely shade of violet. “I’ve _got_ to take you to a party someday, bones.”

“That,” Kravitz says, spinning in his stool until his knees brush against Taako’s. “Why do you call me that?”

This naturally causes the blush on his cheeks to spread like wildfire to the tips of his ears. “Uh,” he says, clearing his throat and gesturing vaguely. Then, so quiet that even Kravitz could barely hear it, and he was inches from pressing his lips against Taako’s cheek with how he was currently sitting. “Cheekbones.”

He blinks. Taako glances up at him, then to the floor, leg bouncing up and down in tune to Kravitz’s heartbeat, loud enough that it rushes to his ears. “Cheekbones?” He asks, amused.

Mumbling.

“Pardon?”

“You have nice cheekbones and I think they’re hot, alright? I’m not going to say it again.”

Their legs bump into each other, and instead of shying away, Kravitz loops his ankle around Taako’s. “And here I thought you knew my secret the whole time,” he says, thanking the gods that the heat boiling under his skin would never be put on display in the same way Taako’s does. “But no, just after my good looks and devilish wit.”

He snorts, covering his nose with a paint-covered hand, and bites his lip. The light in his eyes shift, pupils dilating and any bite and playfulness softening to something serious, fond enough that even Kravitz can see the difference in how his features soften out. “You know it’s not just that, right?”

Kravitz thinks of the Elemental Plane of Fire, and the mirrors that stretched around him and the infernal carved into their frames. His heartstrings pull taught, lips dry and stomach stirring, as he feels a flutter of hope, a flutter of possibility. Even if fate herself may will it, this was of their own making, done in ways that shift the threads in her ever-winding tapestry. “Of course I know.”

And Taako smiles, it’s not dazzling, not trying to impress, and with the bags under his eyes still visible through the flickers of hazy illusions it looks tired, but in that moment Kravitz finds that he would do anything to see it again.

He finds himself wanting to sing, wanting to dance like June, free and full and surrounded by security. He wants to write ballads and symphonies of this feeling, of hearing truths from a half-liar, however quiet and tentative of an admission. He would stay in this moment for eons, even after his death, if it meant that he could experience this, and the moments that follow, until the stars burn out. 

The instructor glazes the vases with speed and accuracy that, quite frankly, terrifies Kravitz. The Dragonborn and orc couple start flexing for the gathered crowd, which means that they get their vases back first, even if the instructor eyes Taako with the exasperation of a man who’s watched him break the rules too many times to be surprised by this point. 

Taako looks up at the moon hanging proudly in the sky before anything else, his eyes sparkling with an energy that only seems to shine when the sun goes down. He’s still tired, but his posture straightens and he starts walking backward, gesturing for Kravitz to follow him around the corner and under the awning of a flower shop. They can both smell the rain hanging thick upon the air. “Here,” he says, holding the vase out to Kravitz. “You take mine, I’ll take yours.”

“But it’s hideous.”

“It has character,” Taako declares, cradling Kravitz’s vase with the tenderness you'd use to handle the holiest of relics. He looks up at him with the same reverence, the sort only reserved for gods. “I love it,” he says, taking a step until he’s in Kravitz’s personal space, a question in the way he tilts his head.

Kravitz has a theory, one that he’s never mentioned aloud, that he often makes decisions run by his emotions, and so, because of this, he will never truly be able to do his job once it comes time for his life to end. His Queen often sways his theory with gentle reassurances to his soul, but it always returns.

So he closes the space between them, the hand not holding Taako’s vase raising to rest on his waist, a touch returned against his forearm while the ugliest vase ever made floats secure in the air. His heart stops, in the second it takes for their lips to meet, but pounds against his chest not a moment later. Taako tastes like tequila and sugar, rosemary strong in Kravitz’s nose though he’s never known him to smell like anything but flowery perfumes. His lips are chapped, and there’s paint against his upper lip that he’s yet to wipe away with prestidigitation, but he kisses Kravitz like he’s never known anything else, no trace of the passion and spitfire present in the rest of his being. It’s the sort of kiss Kravitz has only read about, the kind he’s only been able to dream of, to weave into songs of longing and waiting. 

His knees feel weak when Taako finally pulls away. It was seconds, for him, for anyone else left awake, but to him, it felt like years. He isn’t breathless, but the wind was knocked from his lungs, he isn’t lusting but he’s never felt like this before, he’s dead but he’s alive, and he is a fractured soul now whole. That smile, the one that Kravitz longed for the second it left Taako’s lips, is back, a private thing only meant for him that leaves his anomaly of a heart soaring. 

It’s laughable, Kravitz thinks, that he went into this believing that Taako would want nothing to do with him once he knew the truth, send him running for the hills like every other past lover always did.

He’s about to voice this when Taako’s Stone of Farspeech starts to buzz. He throws his head back, groaning, loose hair tumbling over his shoulder. “It’s Lup,” he says, making to grab the stone from his pocket, and, with a little smile, he meets Kravitz’s gaze until the buzzing stops. “But a minute wouldn’t kill her, would it?”

Under the awning of a closed flower shop, Taako pulls Kravitz back down to him as rain falls upon the ground. Hidden across the street, perched on a street light with the calm a bird should never hold in the cold rain, sits two ravens. One stares unblinkingly, her beak sealed shut and golden eyes trained upon the bagged vase on Kravitz’s arm. The other, white and curious, watches Taako. They take off into the night and vanish before either of the emissaries can pull away and search for the source of the gnawing sensation that they’re being watched.

No prying eyes are around when they stare at each other, fond and unguarded. Even Fate herself remains silent as their bonds shift and intertwine, looking away from her tapestry to smile warmly at the nothing.

  
Taako and Kravitz only look back at each other once when they part to leave. Kravitz only stops to admire Taako as he gets into an argument with his sister about respecting his privacy, umbrella held high and vase close to his chest. Taako turns while Lup goes on about how he just _had_ to hear about the bullshit Angus just pulled to make sure Kravitz has an umbrella. He bursts into laughter when he sees him running across the street with his vase held over his head, shouting curses to the night sky. Then he turns, walks down the street in the opposite direction from Kravitz, and waves off Lup's questions about what's so funny to him.

Neither of them knowing they were truly alone together for the first time since they were called to action, in those few moments.

Neither of them caring.

  1. ~~**_A vase. You will come upon this naturally, or so says what little I could pry from Istus’s tapestry. She does so like to keep the important parts from me, and I could not love her more for it._**~~



**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This update was a little bit hard for me to write since I usually focus on the adventure side of my works instead of the romance, but I'm really proud of how it turned out! Sorry for it taking so long, though; school recently started up and it's a little more difficult to get the chapters punched out when all my schoolwork keeps aggravating my tennis elbow.
> 
> Tumblr: Hekaerge-Athenias  
> IG: Athenias
> 
> Items in Istus's/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors  
> 4\. Sapphire gems and an Opal necklace from the Astral Plane, A Vase


	5. That Awko Taco Moment When Everyone You Care About is Having A Real Bad Time All Around but You're Straight Chilling Because You Got a Nat 20 on Your Saving Throw

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Thought you weren’t a nerd, dude.” 
> 
> “I’m not? This is like, basic shit. Bet you Merle knows." A pause. "...Okay, fuck, that’s fair."

It would be easiest for Taako to admit that things change between him and Kravitz after that night in the rain. It’d half of a lie, really, just like everything else he says daily, always dancing around what he means to say without ever directly coming out with it and desperately hoping everyone understands. But they don’t, not really. When it came to Kravitz Taako was already more open than he should have been, too rusty and too slow after all these years in one place, his heart not necessarily on his sleeve but on the outside of his chest, beating and raw. There was always something about him, about his warm and open smiles and weary eyes to match, that always forced him to stop dancing long enough to get his true feelings out in the open air.

So after that night, they still talk. Rarely about emissary work, because fuuck that, they’re part-time for a reason. But the nights spent on the phone continue, and Kravitz's sleep-deprived and absurd texts still get responses as if they were the most interesting thing in the world.

  
If there’s a way for Taako to describe dating Kravitz compared to harmlessly flirting with him, it’s more like things just shift slightly to the right. Like an armchair that's not where you put it when you put it in your shitty apartment, moved by some friend or boyfriend or another, but you decide it belongs there, in that corner, better than it did sullenly against the wall. 

Kravitz breathes heavily into his stone, some nights, and his weak voice explains that his heart doesn’t work right, and he’s taken up to keeping his windows open at night, listening for a raven’s shrill cry to wake him up. He tells Taako that one night, the raven didn’t cry, and Kravitz slept for a week.

Taako doesn’t have his courage on those nights. He hides behind his clothes like armor against a fear he knows is founded upon empty threats, and continues to dance around his past in the same way two estranged lovers would when forced into a ballroom together. He tells Kravitz that he doesn’t like to cook for large groups, and leaves it at that.

They go on a date. A real one, as Kravitz, insists. It doesn’t go how either of them would have fantasized it going, mostly spent in companionable silence, and ending with a long-winded rant from an exhausted Taako about how he just wants to be done with school. 

Neither of them openly speak about their relationship. It wasn’t something they talked about, more of just a quiet agreement. Johann, Ren, and Lup (and by extension, Barry) are the only ones that know, mentioned off-hand in two separate conversations about a week after their technical “first date”. This is, of course, only because A, Lup is Taako’s sister and has a right to know and B, Kravitz had made the startling realization that he had a bet going on with his friends about who could get a partner first.

They split the hundred bucks evenly between themselves and drank wine to celebrate that sweet, sweet victory.

Life went on outside of Taako’s personal life. Julia calls Lup over after a disastrous attempt at making Lasagna, Lucretia continues to overwork herself between the LAH and her writing and refusing to accept help, and Sloane and Hurley force Barry to join a race with them. Taako spends his days cooped up in class or the lab during this time, until one morning he wakes up, puts his lab coat on, and stops in the hallway when he catches his reflection.

He doesn’t look atrocious, but there’s something deranged in his eyes, an anger that he wasn't able to recognize before it was past the point that he could control on his own. Angus is still sleeping on the couch, snoring softly, and Taako’s ear twitches with annoyance at the sound, lips lifting into a snarl and brows twisting.

His watch tells him it’s four-fifteen in the morning on a Saturday.

With a hastily written note left on the dining room table, Taako leaves for the lake with his fishing pole and doesn’t look back. He doesn’t have any reason for doing it, other than breaking the monotony and getting some life back in his face because Fantasy Jesus Christ, he looks like death warmed over without five layers of foundation and if nothing else that alone would be enough to kill the fish for him.

Angus shows up sometime around six, waving at Taako from the shoreline before plopping himself down on the nearest rock and sorting through his current pile of evidence. By seven, Taako has caught two depressing little fish and would lose his mind if he didn’t know there were some gorgeous catfish in this damn lake.

He feels a tug against his line when he’s halfway through a box of Fantasy Nerds, in time with a chill that steals the air from Taako’s lungs, pulls against his ribcage and urges up to look up, following the chill despite the perfectly good fish he’s currently ignoring in doing so.

And when he finally does look up, it’s just in time to see a raven’s feather land on the tip of his nose.

To say that Taako saw this coming was an overestimation-- he knew, theoretically, that Kravitz had more freedom of where to go and _how_ to get there (They were in disagreement about the perfectly sensible portal behind the Fantasy Dollar tree but conceded on public restrooms, so there’s that). But he always thought there were rules and restrictions, a set of laws kept in place the same way the Raven Queen kept her restrictions on the souls of the living, dead, and undead. 

Yet, pouring out of a tear in the fabric of reality is a clump of ravens, which really means it's just a mass of black feathers and golden eyes. They disperse with desperation, flying over the treetops with fake imitations of caws in human voices. Kravitz is left suspended in the space the ravens left, clutching onto his glasses desperately and looking around wildly until finally-- _finally_ , he looks down and their eyes meet. The terror is palpable, in the second he's frozen in the air, frantically checking his surroundings.

And then he crashes into the boat. It’s a tangle of limbs and desperate maneuvers to keep the whole boat from tipping over, desperate sounds leaving two of them every time the boat rocks just a little too far to one side. Eventually, Taako gets Kravitz upright, enough that the ripples in the water begin to lessen, and they blink at each other. Mouths parted, eyes wide, and hair displaced in their respective rights.

Taako’s the first to crack, a high and, frankly, pretty fucking confused laugh bubbling out of him. Kravitz smiles, lopsided and goofy until bursts of breathless laughter escape past his lips. They lean on each other for support until their stomachs hurt and tears well up in their eyes, before leaning back to truly acknowledge one another. “You know,” Kravitz says, struggling to catch his breath, “I was-- I was going to say that it was almost like fate that we keep meeting like this, but--”

“--but it’s totally fucking fate,” Taako finishes, dissolving into childish giggles. “What did she send you here for?”

“You’re not going to believe me, but my Queen said there’s a box at the bottom of the lake that she needs. Something about an unrestful soul.” Kravitz’s face twists up as he primly adjusts his clothing. “I don’t know how she expects _me_ to get it without drowning.”

If Taako were a lesser man, he would’ve sat back and watched his boyfriend (he feels his heart soar at the mere thought and like, that’s gay) struggle. But then again, he isn’t Jenkins, either so he’s got spell slots to burn before the morning’s over. Laying his fishing rod on the seat behind him, Taako sighs, and peppers Kravitz’s face with kisses with the general air of someone being very put out about having to kiss his boyfriend. Which is a lie. Don't get him wrong, he'll never admit it to Kravitz's face, but he'd rather die than see a day where his heart wouldn't skip a beat at the thought of kissing his boyfriend. His hands rest on that gorgeous jawline fit to cut fruit, magic spreading across dark skin with every light touch of his lips. 

Kravitz, for the most part, waits patiently until Taako’s done kissing every inch of his face to raise an impeccable brow at him, lip twitching as he watches Taako wiggle his fingers in a flourish. “Ah yes, of course, thank you for your blessings, o mighty and powerful Taako,” he says, deadpan. “I am forever in your debt.”

“I can take away that breathe water spell if you want to be an ungrateful fuck.”

“Please don’t.” Kravitz carefully seats himself on the bench of the boat, holding out both hands to help Taako do the same. He eyes the murky waters with distaste, carefully folding his glasses and handing them over without glancing in Taako’s direction. He lets out a sigh that moves through his whole body before he sets to work unlacing his pristine leather shoes with contempt. “I wish I’d get a heads up before I get called to do stuff like this. Do you _know_ how many dress shirts I’ve ruined this past month?”

Taako doesn’t have to reflect on what he’s seen of Kravitz’s missions to get a rough number-- the last time he went over to his apartment, there had been a pile of them, all neatly folded despite being torn to threads and a note simply saying ‘Crop tops?’ slapped onto the top shirt. “I’ve got an idea.”

Kravitz dives into the lake without much in way of goodbyes, vanishing into the murky depths. Bubbles float to the surface and pop for a few seconds, but inevitably fade altogether. 

It takes five minutes for Kravitz to find the box at the bottom of the lake. Taako doesn’t even bother to gauge Angus’s expression from the center of the lake-- if he did, he would know that everything was fine-- eyes transfixed on the spot where Kravitz had swum down, down, down, until he couldn’t see anything past the shadows of his boat. 

If you asked him, Taako would admit that in those five minutes, he finally understood what Lup felt in the short seconds she was a lich outside her living body. He could feel himself breathing, his heart beating in his chest, but he couldn’t blink, couldn’t breathe the air his body took in and sent out with every breath. He was stretched too far, too thin, everywhere and nowhere, until a hand breaks the surface of the water, chilled fingers coiling around Taako’s outstretched forearm and dragging him back into his shaking body. 

Kravitz doesn’t gasp for breath as they struggle to haul him over the edge, too heavy with the feathered cloak around his shoulders, but he breathes hard and fast as he crumbles onto the bench, hands trembling as they hold a water-damaged wooden box with delicately painted flowers on the lid. There’s something broken about the delicate way he handles it, turning it over on its side and prying open the rusted lock with his fingernails. “It’s broken,” he says, more to himself than Taako as he rows them back to shore. Inside of the box the rusted mechanisms of a music box have no outward flaws, but when Kravitz slowly winds it up the melody distorts and creaks, ending abruptly.

“Well, obviously,” says Taako, shivering as his boots hit the shallow end of the lake, water soaking through his overalls. He hopes the smile he gives Kravitz does something to shake the melancholy from him, but he’s not looking up from the box, only giving the slightest indications that he’s even listening. “She wouldn’t ask you for something that’s still technically living, yeah? It’s got a purpose with someone who needs it broken. Fuck, I think that’s how your weird fucking bird mom works, anyway?”

A small smile. It doesn’t quite reach Kravitz’s eyes, but it’s enough to release tension from Taako's shoulders and force his attention back to tying down his rowboat. “You had me up until that last part, Taako.” Finally tearing his eyes away from the music box, his eyes skip over Taako and land immediately on Angus. “How long has he been there?”

“Like, four hours? I think he followed me, but it’s whatever. Not like I could force him to go home or anything.” Leaning back, “Hey, Ango, you want this cucumber sandwich I forgot to eat?”

“Oh, good morning, sirs! And yes, I would! A bird stole my granola bar, which was very rude of it. But if it needed food more than me, I guess it’s okay.” Angus gathers his evidence into both arms, smiling to his ears. Kravitz turns a lovely shade of red, coughing into his elbow, and busies himself with passing Taako his bait box and fishing rod. 

Taako decides it best to not spend more than a second contemplating whether or not this bird was involved in throwing Kravitz into the Prime Material plane. “Birds are little shits, my man, don’t even trip.” Gesturing to the forest, “go on ahead, we’ll catch up.”

Sandwich in hand, Angus waves with more energy than anyone should have after waking up at the ass crack of dawn, and bolts into the forest. Kravitz whistles a melody as he smooths out his shirt, primly adjusting his glasses as he Presdigitates the lake water off of himself. “Are we still on for next Saturday?” He asks as his scythe forms in his hands, which, listen, Taako’s all about showing off your cool party tricks but it’s just totally unfair if you manage to look so goddamn ethereal doing it. 

On the upside, Taako gets to actually kiss this fool instead of pining like some teenager in high school. Which he does. With vigor. His face is still freezing, lingering effects from the lake and the Astral Plane shoved into a magnificently shitty combo, but his hand is warm when Taako takes it in his. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world, babe.” 

He lingers at the edge of the forest, arms wrapped around himself as Kravitz feels around the air, head tilted to the sky. A white raven lands on the rock closest to him, head tilted in curiosity. With a hum and a swipe of his scythe, a rift tears itself open. A woman’s voice calls to him on the other end of the portal, too quiet for Taako to make our her words.

Kravitz vanishes through the rift with a smile in his direction and a murmured response to the Raven Queen.

Taako turns to follow after Angus with a wistful sigh and fingers pressed to his lips, skin vibrating under pinpricks of cold.

If Angus sees the smile plastered onto Taako's face, he doesn't mention it.

**✧**

The Library of Arcane History is, in most regards, the jewel of Neverwinter’s eye. Located within reach of Neverwinter University, it houses more texts on the technicalities of magic, the whys and hows that no mage bothers to ask, than any other library in Faerun. Moreover, some texts are older than the university itself, only available for viewing by a select few.

This is why Taako got a job as a librarian. Sure, he used to joke about the dental plan and how he only got it because of Lucretia’s recommendations (something she will neither confirm nor deny), but even the responses, flat and joking and indulgent, were just that; indulgences for his sake. There was a spark in his eye, every time there was mentionings of power, of magic beyond his imagination. To be able to take what foundations his ancestors allowed to become degraded with time, to make them better, make them _more_ , it was… thrilling.

It was an obsession.

And so Taako no longer works as a librarian, because his boss learned just how far his ambitions ran. The doors to their ancient books were always locked with chains and steel bars, more than they were before he was fired. Lucretia smiles when he enters, but it never reaches her eyes. She, too, saw the ugly parts of him and his magic. She never faults him, always understanding, always knowing that he would find a way where the world fails. Once, Lucretia told him that she would steal the books for him if she didn’t care for the preservation of history so much. A platitude, they both know, but the gesture is appreciated nonetheless.

He takes a deep breath as his feet carry him through the door. Dimly, he knows that Magnus, Barry, and Merle are behind him, ghosts in his shadow. He can’t hear their footsteps over the roaring in his ears as his trembling hands grip his jeans, a smile wrenched deep from his chest as he approaches the woman who replaced him.

He’s seen Varali every once in a while on the university campus. She’s not a student, supposedly, but she walks through the halls like a ghost, pausing only to speak with a professor that Taako can’t care to learn the name of, only knowing that he teaches History of Magical Enchantments because Davenport pointed him out one time. She’s bent over a book, currently, mumbling to herself as she transfers text to a much more organized diagram than Taako’s would ever be. The bags under her eyes are notable, but her hair casts shadows over them, non-dominant hand twitching as her entire arm ripples in and out of existence with the barest flicker of green light.

Lucretia describes her as a loner, trusting more than a loner should, enthralled with Neverwinter’s perception of magic and fearful for a family she left back in her own country.

Taako just sees a reflection of himself. 

“Hey, kid,” He says, startling her from her transcriptions. She doesn’t make a noise, too accustomed to his sudden interruptions, raising a perfectly shaped eyebrow at him instead. “So, funny story--”

“--I’m not letting you into the Catacombs, Taako.”

“How the _fuck_ did you come to the conclusion I was going to ask that? I could just be coming by to tell you I ruined one of the seven books currently checked out under my name, _Varali_.” She slides her work to one side, eyeing the rest of his companions lazily. Returning to him, she harrumphs.

“Perish the thought.” Her lip twists; held tight in her palm is a rune. Her arm doesn’t flicker a second time. “Tell me, then. What you’re here for, I mean, not some intricate lie you’ve come up with on the spot to wiggle your way downstairs.”

“Do you want me to cast Zone of Truth?”

“No,” says everyone gathered, in perfect unison. Merle deflates. Taako sighs and leans closer to Varali. “Listen, I don’t trust you as far as I can throw you, so just get Lucretia, alright? She knows what’s up and, lemme be real, I trust her ability to keep her job after helping us with our business a lot more than I trust yours.”

“You go get her if you’re so intent on being an ass about it.” Signaling an end to their conversation, Varali returns to her research. 

Taako nearly takes up on her offer, halfway through deciding on whether or not he should storm off or not when his ring lights up just enough for him to seize up. “I _literally_ told you that you need her help with this one,” Istus says, exhaustion dripping from every syllable. “Varali, dear, hi. Go into the backroom for a minute?”

Blinking, she does so, almost absently.

They wait patiently for a few seconds, and on cue, she stumbles out, disoriented and more confused than when she went in. “Right,” she says, as the glow in Taako’s ring dies out. “Right, you need Lucretia. What the fuck.”

She pulls a staff from behind the desk, slinging it around her shoulder with practiced ease as she wanders through the bookshelves, only reappearing with Lucretia at her side. She nods at the gathered assembly, adjusting her glasses. “What does Varali mean by ‘God has Double Ds’?” 

Taako blinks. Glances to Magnus and Merle. Barry would be no help, considering he’s in the middle of writing notes on Istus knows what. Looks down to his ring. Looks back at Lucretia. Shrugs. “Well, I’m like, the last person to be staring at Istus’s tits, so I can’t really tell you?”

Varali coughs awkwardly. “We should get going. I don’t know how long both of us can be absent before the boss notices. Hey, Garrett?” A man looks up from where he’s studying, tear stains tracking down his face. “You’re in charge. Unless Maeve swings by. Then the library’s her problem. Got it?”

Garrett gives her a thumbs up and promptly returns to his mental breakdown.

Taako almost feels bad for the guy when he spies their Bond Theory textbook in front of him. “Barry,” Lucretia says, too light to just be a passing conversation. “Don’t touch the books.”

“Why would I?” He asks, currently distracted as he watches Varali begin the absurd process of unlocking the catacombs. Taako scoffs and-- rightfully so. Him being banned from the Catacombs? A fucking scam is what it was. But _Barry_ , the known _necromancer_? Yeah, that shit’s about as sensible as it gets.

“The same reason Taako can’t touch the books.”

“Okay, but no one told me I _can’t_? Just that I can’t go into the Catacombs anymore because I'm not an employee which, just to point out, you’re currently helping me get into.” The look Taako gets from Lucretia is downright lethal. “Shit, alright, Luc, we won’t touch the fucking books, get off our dicks.”

This isn’t enough to get her to ease her watch of them, of course, but it’s enough to get her to leave them alone long enough to help Varali open the door to the catacombs. “Watch your step,” she warns, squinting into the darkness. Her left hand, palm upturned and outstretched, sends out a blue ball of light into the depths, illuminating the way. Varali sends a glance over her shoulder as she leads the way down. “Magnus can’t touch the books either, by the way.”

“Bold of you to assume I can read!” Comes the chipper reply, from somewhere behind Taako. He follows close behind Varali, some nostalgic part of him feeling free as his hand trails along the walls, skipping over long-empty alcoves. 

The Catacombs, despite their name, don’t reek of stale water, mold, and rot. They used to, some time ago, but now nothing but the cold stone and the distant stench of air freshener. The room lights up in a brilliant blue the moment Varali’s foot reaches the bottom step, revealing the rows of metal bookshelves and glass cases. 

Varali treats the books with reverence. She eyes them with approval, smiles at the papers strewn across the tables, lit up from below, focusing more on them than she ever would a living person. Lucretia, meanwhile, looks at them with appreciation, inspiration. No worship for the past, but an acknowledgment of the weight they carry. “What instructions did Lady Istus leave us?” She asks.

They form a circle as Taako unfolds the paper, squinting at it even with his night vision. Lucretia manages to read it first, cursing under her breath. By the time Taako figures it out, he’s grinning nearly to his ears. “Barold, my guy, my dude,” he says, holding it out for him to read, “We gotta touch these books.”

It’s a free for all from there If Taako's going to be real. Varali makes a feeble attempt to stop them, as in, a half-whispered “no, you can’t touch the books” as she reclines herself into the nearest chair and offers gum to Magnus.

Barry squints at the note Taako passes to him once, before he makes a surprised noise in the back of his throat and meanders through one of the middle aisles. From what Taako remembers about his clue, he _thinks_ that he’s going to have to find the Written Account of the Necromantic Renaissance by Dorian Achillinus. Just a guess, honestly. Not like he’s worked in this daft fucking basement for years or anything.

“‘Find the Night the Lady of Ores won the war’? What the _fuck_? Taako, do you even know what that means?” Barry shouts from the shadowy depths of the Catacombs. Taako scratches at his chin as his hand follows the spines of rotting books, squinting at the faded titles.

“Uh, yeah, you don’t? Dude, it’s High Priestess Mercedes’ Thesis on divine intervention. Lady was like, a super wicked Paladin that got possessed or something.” With a swift casting of Magehand, he nudges a hefty tome from the highest shelf. Sparing only a glance at the cover, he returns to the center of the room to place it on the nearest table and retrieve the gum Varali offers him.

Magnus pauses his efforts of creating a gnarly looking bubble to grin at Taako. “Thought you weren’t a nerd, dude.” 

“I’m not? This is like, basic shit. Bet you Merle knows.”

In unison, those gathered turn to the dwarf in question, then back to Taako. None of them speak. He sighs and, with a shrug, pulls on a pair of gloves to open the book with.

“Okay, fuck, that’s fair. But I’m not a nerd, I’m like, a sexy scientist or whatever. Barry’s the nerd.” 

Silence fills the room, only broken by the occasional pop of bubble gum or excruciatingly slow flip of ancient paper. It was peaceful, almost, right up until the moment Merle had to go and fucking ruin it with-- “Isn’t Barry a scientist too, though?”

“Uh, ch’yeah, but is he _sexy_?”

“--I--”

“--No, he’s right,” Barry says, emerging from the aisle with his face in the book already, gloved hands holding either cover. “Taako and Lup are the sexy geniuses, and I’m the nerd. It’s this whole thing, you had to be there for it. Is this the right book?”

Lucretia looks between Istus’s list and the books set before her and hums in agreement, a late fucking thing to do considering they’re already arranging the books on the table with the same level of intensity bored high school students do with the seventy-five paper hats they’ve spent the last hour and a half folding. “Grab a buddy,” Taako says, flinging one of his latex gloves across the Catacombs with a flick of his thumb. “Don’t want to splatter our guts across the interdimensional walls.”

Varali opens her mouth to protest this likelihood, but Barry and Taako are already reaching out to press their index fingers against the page numbers. In the split second it takes for the spell to activate, he sees Lucretia grab onto Varali and Magnus out of the corner of his eye. Merle sighs and grabs the edge of Barry’s jean jacket. 

It’s as simple as blinking. One moment you’re in a depressing secret library, the next your head is swimming with vertigo and the groans of your companions fill your ears as you take in your new surroundings.

  
  
Taako pops his shoulder as he waits for the room to stop spinning, hand pressed to his temple to ease the absolutely brutal headache the blurred neon lights are giving him. Fishing for his sunglasses in his bag and slapping them across his face ASAP, he finds Magnus, Lucretia, and Varali hanging halfway off the edge of a wooden railing, only kept aloft by Magnus’s sheer will. Merle and Barry, meanwhile, have taken to hurling into the nearest trash cans. 

Once everyone’s done crawling back onto the solid flooring and barfing in their respective rights, Taako procures six tickets from behind his ear, a trick that leaves Magnus in awe. There, in plain print along the front of it, is the name of the neon carnival behind them-- Hubert’s Fun Time Carnival. No one thinks to ask _where_ they are, exactly, which should be the first cause of action for anyone that hasn’t decided it a question better left unanswered. 

Robots dressed in antique dresses take their tickets with tinny, identical platitudes telling them to enjoy their time. The guests are, similarly, robotic in form, though dressed more like a primo example of a rave fashion disaster than anything else. Families in flashing neon clothes with bright wires for hair chatter, parting silently for them, with couples making out in shadowed corners (a fact that Barry finds immensely amusing as he points out that most of them don’t have mouths), and fair attendees handing over real, genuine food. 

“Keep an eye out for a heart!” Taako shouts above the noise of constantly moving carnival rides and yelling children, forcing a robot to the side with an elbow. 

“A _what_?” Shouts the party, in unison. Magnus makes to grab some fried Oreos off of a counter. Merle slaps his hand away, scowling at him.

“A heart! You’ll know it when you see it!” 

This is, of course, the exact moment that the Ferris wheel collapses. Because of course it is. Theoretically, there could have been signs, something in gaudy neon letters spelling out ‘hey fuckass, watch out!’, but there was just… nothing. The Ferris wheel was there in one second, lights flashing, and the next the metal supports were collapsing and robots were screaming and a carriage falls not for him, but for Varali, and as much as he hates her guts he can’t just let her die and--

And then they’re standing at the opening of a funhouse. In one of the nearby windows, he sees Varali flicker, just a second of unstable green matter, but when he turns his head she’s solid, trembling and hugging herself. Taako doesn’t think anything of it, but Barry’s hands are trembling, too, and there’s this terrified look in his eyes that he hasn’t seen since he became a lich. “What… What did you do?” He asks, and for a few tense seconds, she doesn’t answer, just closes her eyes and tilts her head skyward.

But then Merle is patting her on her hip, smiling in the comforting way only he can. “Some pretty quick thinking, I’d reckon. We’d all be toast if it wasn’t for this kid.” Then, with nonchalance, he prances on into the funhouse. Magnus follows with enthusiasm, nonplussed by his most recent scrape with death, with Lucretia close on his heels. 

If Taako hands Varali a chocolate bar from his bag of holding, it’s not because he doesn’t feel bad for her. And if he passes Barry his inhaler, well. It was his fault for forgetting it at home, wasn’t it?

The inside of the funhouse can only be accurately described as an epileptic seizure waiting to happen. They climb down short, metal steps to find a crowd of teenagers dancing like the world ends tomorrow, music roaring and colored lights flashing in tune to the stomping of feet. Merle parts the crowd with the expertise of a man who’s had to do this one too many times, only pausing to look up and check the signs above the striped doors. “Okay,” he shouts, gesturing to the doors, “Magnus, Librarian chick, you’re with me! We’ll handle the obstacle room!”

Sparing the hysterical concept of Merle going through an obstacle course of any type, Taako gestures for Lucretia and Barry to follow him.

Climbing up staircase after staircase, they stop only when the fog grows thick around their feet and the flashing multicolored lights return. There’s no ominous door to open to reveal the maze; from the moment Taako’s foot touches the last step the lights flash once, twice, and then he sees himself stretched out into infinity, then Barry, then Lucretia. One entrance, one exit. 

They walk with their hands outstretched. This, of course, doesn’t stop Barry from hitting his head on several mirrors or Taako from trying to break one to find a shortcut after six straight minutes of no exit in sight. 

Lucretia stops them with deft hands, eyes alert as she turns her head from side to side. “Something’s here,” she says, matter-of-factly, and then-- there. A flash of black, a flash of purple, just around a corner. “Get your wands.”

With every step they take further into the maze, more shapes appear until suddenly it’s not him and his family stretching into infinity but distorted robots in tutus. Wild hair, metal faces that don’t blink and voices that echo and laugh all about them. Some stumble, following a separate path in the maze, hanging off of friends, but most walk with cotton candy in hand, children in tow, passing through the reflections and chatting about where to go next. 

Through the colors that change and the fog around their feet, Taako turns left, then right, and in a narrow hall, he sees a flash of raven feathers, an echo of a woman’s frustrated groans, murmured honey voice, white hair against purple skin. Left right, straight, right, right, straight, left. When he turns again he almost collides directly with what he’d call a sight for sore eyes. Kravitz blinks down at him with wide eyes, the hood of his cloak shrouding his face in shadows. Slowly, he looks from Taako to Lucretia, then Barry. “Huh,” he says.

“Huh _my ass_. Kravitz, bless your fuckin heart, you should’a known they’d be here from the moment I got called into this mighty fine mess.” Ren wipes a suspicious amount of dust off of her shoulders, flashing a smile their way. The robots begin to disperse in the reflections stretching to infinity around them. “Good afternoon, Taako, Mr. Bluejeans. What y’all lookin for?”

Kravitz holds out his hands to press against a pane of glass, only to have his hands pass through. He sends an apologizing smile Taako’s way. “We don’t need to know, Ren. All we’ve got to worry about is getting through this maze. Also, meet Lucretia. Lucretia, Ren. Ren, Lucretia.” With his companion thoroughly distracted, “Hi, babe.”

Taako almost smooches his brains out right then and there at the sight of his exhausted little smile, but then he catches Barry’s shit-eating grin in the reflection of one of the mirrors and decides that shit can’t fly at _all_. “Yeah, sup to you too, stud, what’s this place’s fuckin _deal_?”

Kravitz walks face-first into a mirror that, by all accounts, wasn’t there before, which just further proves his point. “I don’t know. The carnival’s been trying to kill us on and off for the past hour. All we’ve been able to figure out is that this might be in the Ethereal plane.” Rubbing at his forehead, “I threw a robot shaped like a gorilla into the Ferris wheel earlier so it would stop trying to throw Ren across the grounds.”

Taako and Barry share a Look in one of the mirrors, before deciding that Kravitz doesn’t need to know that he almost unknowingly killed his boyfriend and five other people. “So, like, we’re all just going to pretend we know and hope we forget this whole experience, right?”

“Oh, no, absolutely. I'm fully intending on repressing this night as much as I possibly can.” With the same dopey smile that he always got before saying something incredibly sweet, “Well, I’ll want to remember you being here with me.”

“That’s pretty gay, Krav.” Squinting at a mirror, “also, I think we can break this son of a bitch if we all cast Blink and you do… whatever it is you do with that scythe? You know, following the whole ethereal plane thing.”

It is, admittedly, the worst idea that Taako’s had to date, but you know it’s bad when even he’s sick of looking at his reflection. Cross-referencing with Barry, he confirms the theory that casting a spell to go into the ethereal plane while still being bodily within it would fuck shit up, but they’re not sure how. They try to get Lucretia to weigh in, only to see her red to her ears and laughing at something Ren says. The look on Kravitz’s face-- stuck somewhere between pride and terror-- is priceless. “Hey, Luc, stop being a useless lesbian and help us break the shit out of reality!”

“Fucking… again, Taako?” Lucretia runs her hands across her face. “There’s got to be a capacity. We don’t even know what Varali _did_ to break it last time--”

“--Do you want to see what happens or not?” 

The look she gives him is scandalized like she’s pissed at him for daring to consider anything otherwise. “Obviously, but if shit goes south I’m going to tell Lup it’s your fault.”A pause. Then, “Why didn’t you ask Ren if she wanted to help?”

With a huff, he fishes out his wand and turns it over in his hand. “Because I know she’s down for anarchy. Duh. Alright, so, Krav, babe, you gotta be quick on this, I don’t want to be the reason you beef it twice. You losers remember Blink, right?”

A murmured confirmation. “Sick, cool. Barold, count us down, uh thank you.”

With Barry’s monotone voice filling the silence, Taako doesn’t give himself time to think about the outcome. And, once they reach zero, he’s the first gone, only stopping long enough to make sure that Kravitz is moving, too.

If you asked him to describe what happens next, he’ll tell you that it’s the closest he’s ever gotten to remembering the time that Lup crashed what Davenport called the ‘family wagon’. His skull throbs, limbs heavy as lead without movement, without purpose, and the wind knocked right out of his lungs. His ears get the shitty report of metal scraping against metal slowly, painfully, and tears well up in his eyes but never fall. One by one, they all appear after him and he watches the cycle continue. Barry screws his eyes shut but doesn’t try to block the sound as Lucretia does, and Ren flinches as if shot. 

When Kravitz crosses over with a swift tear into the fabric of reality, he doesn’t react at all. Tilts his head curiously, furrows his brows, but does nothing else. All around them, the lights flash faster, smoke rising to the ceiling, but everything’s washed out, all the muted greys typical for the ethereal plane. When Taako reaches out to touch a solid wall, he finds his hand passes through it. 

And so they head for the exit, marked only as nothingness in space and time. Kravitz guides Ren along with gentle hands, mouth opening as if to speak only to find that the sound doesn’t carry. He doesn’t seem to notice this, however, and from the looks of it, neither does Ren. Lucretia holds her staff tight in her hands, knuckles white against the wood.

Barry watches Taako, looking for a sign of weakness, a tell, anything.

Taako only thinks about the split second of the wagon crash, over and over, until he’s back in the moment, leg searing with pain, and the absence of life in front of him is the night sky above him as he crawls out of the car with Lup holding tight against his neck. Blood pouring from a wound in her head and focus scattered, she’d still insisted on making the emergency call. 

He thinks about waiting with her on the side of a road, his head against her shoulder as sirens blare and flash. 

He thinks about the crash, because Lup was there with him, and that was enough.

Passing through the exit was like a drink of cool water. Dispelling Blink the instant they cross over, he heaves in lungfuls of air, shaking numbness from his fingers. Kravitz appears to his right, blinking as if adjusting to some light change. Lucretia’s bracing herself on her staff, Ren reaching out blindly until she finds it to right herself. 

Barry adjusts his glasses and before Taako can look away from Kravitz, or Kravitz can look away from Taako, he says, “well _that’s_ not what we came here for.”

It’s an empty, dark, circular room before them, stretching into infinity. The only light source is far up ahead, a single spotlight shining down on one of those fair booths where you shoot darts at balloons in exchange for outrageously sized stuffed animals. Except, hanging off the side, is a phylactery. More notable are the dozens of ravens nailed to the board, squirming and writhing in attempts to escape. “What the fuck,” is the only reaction anyone could possibly expect from Kravitz. “What the actual fuck?”

“Those can’t be real. There just ain’t no way in hell, right?” Ren’s voice is wavering, displaying a worry that Taako keeps carefully concealed as they all take slow, cautious steps towards the booth. “Right?”

Barry looks gobsmacked, either by the possibility of being in front of a manifestation of the goddess that wants him dead or by the horror of the matter, Taako can’t tell. “I don’t-- I don’t think she can be contained, but--”

“--It’s not the Raven Queen,” Kravitz says, and the certainty in his voice leaves shoulders to sag and sighs to be released. To himself, “it’s the eyes.” 

The lights flicker as they stop under the awning. None of them try to reach out and grab the phylactery, for a number of reasons. Lucretia and Ren don’t do it because they cast detect traps and detect magic respectively and the answers weren’t exactly comforting, Barry doesn’t do it because this entire room feels wrong, Kravitz doesn’t do it because he can see the booth for what it truly is, and Taako doesn’t do it because he’s not fucking stupid. 

A robot in an antique dress shambles out from the back. No one seems particularly surprised by this development. Even less so when it holds a box out in their general direction. After a good minute of them looking between the robot, the darts in the box, at one another, Taako says, “Krav, you go first, you’re the only one with a retirement plan.”

His laugh is rich and low, albeit mildly uncomfortable. “That’s a lie and you know it, Taako.” His eyes sparkle under the lights as he turns, dimpled face and all, to wink at him. “I’m just the only one that gets off easy.”

Which, like, Taako’s mushy fuckin weak ass heart doing flips at the sight of his absolute asshole of a boyfriend winking in the face of danger aside, is a _pretty_ fucking ominous thing to say? Like, what the hell does that even mean? He makes such known, but only gets a shrug in response as Kravitz throws the first dart. Shoulders sag when he pierces a blue balloon with a resounding pop, and the robot titters over to Taako, thrusting the box at him expectantly. “Nah, I’ll pass, thanks little robot homie.” The box rattles as the robot presses it closer, through the barrier they can’t pass and against his chest. “Uh, don’t you know what no means, dude?”

“Taako, take the goddamn dart and throw it,” Barry says, his glasses shoved to his forehead and head in his hand. “You can’t possibly be any worse than Lucretia’s gonna be.”

“Ugh. Fuck, fine, but if I hit a bird it’s not my fault.” Slowly, with trembling hands and rings that seem hazy, under the fluorescent lights, he lifts a dart from the box. The robot makes a pleased whirring sound and takes a stiff step to the right. He doesn’t bother to steady himself, just throws the dart haphazardly and flinches almost instinctively.

The sound of a balloon popping reverberates through the void surrounding them. Slowly, Taako opens his eyes, and huffs, smiling brightly. “See? I knew I could do it.” No one dignifies him with a response, all eyes watching as the robot moves on to Barry. A warm hand in his, calloused at the tips and grip strong against the sides of Taako’s. Kravitz’s presence doesn’t ease the tension from his shoulders, but it draws the wariness from his eyes.

A bird shrieks not a second later, and the wariness turns to terror, turns to worry as he spies Kravitz, hand clutched over his heart. There against the board, a black raven turns white, crimson eyes glazed as golden blood pours out and down, down, down to the nothing. 

The change in Barry is immediate. It’s not something easily hidden, not here when he’s halfway to the Astral plane already. His hands tremble, limbs shaking like leaves as he glances about hurriedly, mouth opened in gaping fear. Waves of energy pour off of him, fear palpable in the air. Not their own, but Barry’s, as his body comes undone at the seams. Red flickers around his outline, a flash of inky dark and bright white eyes and a crimson red lab coat. It doesn’t occur to Taako to worry about what this means, not now, not with Barry terrified and coming undone with a catalyst that wasn’t his lack of self-control. 

The hand in Taako’s tightens. In reassurance, in fear, he can’t tell, can’t bring himself to care. “Barry, you need to center yourself,” Lucretia calls, ushering Ren back and away from him until she’s behind her, a shield against the danger. “We’re all safe, not just for now, for as long as you allow it, but you just have to piece yourself back together.”

“I can’t-- it’s not-- _fuck_ \-- it’s not me!” Tears in his eyes, blood pouring from his nose, his mouth. “I need-- I need--”

And then, all at once, green ripples across him. A flicker not of his soul manifesting into the real world, but a flicker of nothing, then something. Waves of lightning coursing through his body in a magnificent green as he screams, pleads, and then--

And then he’s standing, poised to throw a dart no longer in his hand. He jumps from the booth, intends to flee, only to turn and find no exit, no salvation, and instead throws himself to the ground and hides with his head between his knees. Only now does Taako recognize who’s holding his hand, and feels dread freeze his body solid. It’s not for fear of Kravitz’s reaction, not for fear of what he thinks, but what this could mean for Barry, for all that they’ve done to keep themselves safe from the Raven Queen’s wrath.

The apologies lie at the tip of his tongue, and the tip of Lucretia’s, but they die there, never spoken, as Kravitz releases Taako’s hand and slowly, cautiously approaches Barry. There’s no shock, no retribution in the way he crouches down, in the way he opens his cloak to give him what little privacy they can get. His hands tremble and worry is there, but not for what Barry is, but indecision on what to do about it. If he were afraid of Barry, he wouldn't be doing this. He glances up at Ren and nods. A minute thing, but she steps around Lucretia. Approaches the robot. Holds out a hand covered in bandages from a life spent in a kitchen. With a dart in hand, she steadies herself, holds a hand over her heart to steady her breathing. Turning to Taako, then Lucretia, her smile is watery and tentative at best. “Y’all owe me a round’a drinks after this, y’hear?”

A dart sailing through the air. Kravitz’s reassurances to Barry falling upon deaf ears. Taako’s heartbeat, heavy in his skull, a knife between his eyes. And Lucretia, tense with one hand on her staff, the other reassuring against Ren’s shoulder.

A raven’s shrill cry of pain. 

“Well, shit.” Ren’s eyes roll to the back of her head almost comically, and Taako has to keep himself from yelling out, from saying something stupid, from tripping as he rushes to help Lucretia keep her from falling to the ground. There’s a spark, boiling in his belly, an untamed beast that he can’t acknowledge, not now, not with so much at stake.

The robot moves to where Lucretia crouches, cradling Ren’s head against the crook of her neck. It holds the box out over the edge of the booth. Rattles it. “Go,” Taako says before he can even think about it. “Fucking _go_ , I just want to get that dumb heart thing and get out of here.”

He doesn’t wait with bated breath as Lucretia throws her dart. Ren thrashes with her head in his lap, mouth forming names he never knew or never cared to know as she screams. He holds each of her wrists against her thighs as she tries-- desperately-- to dig into her skin. Instead, she digs into his, and he barely notices, too busy trying to keep himself together long enough to help Lucretia if she needs it, to get them all out of this nightmare in one relative piece

Lucretia doesn’t hit a bird. Taako hears her dart bounce off of something and clatter to the floor in place of a bird screeching or the horrible pop of a balloon. 

Lucretia doesn’t hit a bird, but she doesn’t hit a balloon either.

And so she stumbles back, eyes wide, face green, only stopping when she nearly trips over Ren’s foot. Her eyes follow unseen shapes, just for a moment, before her eyes clear and she dashes forward madly, arms braced on the edge of the booth, and retches her lunch into the booth. “Illusions,” she says as she resurfaces, hair displaced and lipstick smudged. Her hands shake as she kneels next to Ren. She brushes her hair behind her ear to reveal a heavy sheen of sweat on her brow, and purses her lips. “It’s all illusions for us.”

Ren wakes up not a second later. Taako hastily removes his hands underneath him, shooting a sneer at Lucretia when she opens her mouth to speak with her eyes locked on where they were. Barry’s sitting, now, with Kravitz still by his side. Both of them staring, unblinking, at the robot. It holds a closed fist out in their direction. “Okay, cool, that fucking sucked,” He announces, helping a shaky Ren to her feet. Handing her off to Lucretia, he positions himself to Kravitz’s left in front of the robot. 

The phylactery shimmers against Kravitz’s skin, silver metal against a constantly changing rainbow of colors that swirls about in the glass. There’s an engraving on it, but Kravitz has it around his neck and under his shirt before he could even make out the first word. He doesn’t know what he must look like to the others, some ugly fury masking whatever good cheer he usually faked, and if he’s going to be honest: he couldn’t give two shits what he looked like right now.

Because this shithole fucked with his brother.

Kravitz, the magnificent bastard, presses a kiss against his temple, a barely there motion before he takes five steps back.

Ice pours out of him like a blizzard, a wall of force that slams into the booth, shatters the shitty barriers set up by whoever the _fuck_. Icicles tear through the fabric, a flurry of motion as the robot’s slowly reaching hand out to his face stops, the tip of its finger frozen to the core and only a hair's width away from the tip of his nose. His hair whips in the wind as the Cone of Frost roars, takes no prisoners, gives no mercy. It's freeing, to let his magic outpour from him in uncontrolled waves as the blizzard takes and takes from him, turning all of his aptitude and using it for destruction instead of creation. He almost laughs, then, a high and victorious sound, as the darkness around them freezes over, too. 

But he doesn’t, because they’re still here, and these motherfuckers still tried to kill Barry, tried to hurt Ren. 

So he holds his hand out, instead, and grins with his teeth as Lucretia presses her staff into his waiting palm. It twirls in his hand, a steady, comforting weight. 

He throws his entire weight into the swing. It collides with the shoulders of the robot, sends metal and frozen oil and nuts and bolts scattering to the wind, caught up in his spell. Again and again he smashes at it until nothing remains, until the cone of frost disrupts abruptly, scattering to all sides of the room. 

When he looks up, he finds himself in front of a door, the music abruptly cut, lights stuck on red. The robots are scattered across the floor, specks of ice still lingering against metal faces. Taako's breathing is haggard, taxed as his body sways in place.

Lucretia takes her staff from his tight grip with quiet coaxes as the right door swings open, and Merle, Magnus, and Varali stumble out. He expects injuries, broken lips, anything like that, and instead he finds minor bruising on Magnus’s face, shoulders slumped in exhaustion. There’s terror, there, too, in the way that Merle holds his Extreme Teen Bible to his chest and Magnus holds the heart in both of his giant hands, both covered in dry blood that isn’t his own or the heart’s.

There’s anger, too, in Varali as she wipes tears from her eyes. She pauses, briefly, as she does a double-take. “Ren?” She asks, voice strained and rough. “What the hell are _you_ doing here?”

Ren blinks and looks down from the ceiling. She manages a weak, wobbly smile. “Aw, y’all know what they say. Ain’t no rest for the evil.” Resting her head against Lucretia’s shoulder, “I suppose y’all got yer own way out?”

“I’m assuming so. Taako?”

Taako contemplates banging his head on a wall until he knocks himself out. It seems easier than dealing with this hellscape any more than he has to. “Fuck, yeah. We gotta find the books somewhere in this goddamn fair--”

“--How about you just come with us instead?” Kravitz’s smile is small and tired, but not forced. It’s gentle enough to take the edge off of Taako’s growing frustration. “I have it on high authority that Istus won’t fault you for taking a little shortcut.”

“I would kill for you, babe, holy shit.”

His smile falters. “I’d really rather you don’t.”

Kravitz tells them to be careful going through the rift and assures Ren that he’ll be just behind her. Taako doesn’t buy that shit for a minute and ushers the others through the portal before him, watching and waiting by Kravitz’s side until the last of their collective party passes over. 

“Taako, I--”

The kiss he gives Kravitz is abrupt, mostly to get him to shut up, to not say whatever he was about to say because what they have is _good_ , they’re _good_ , and they’re not going to talk about the Lich in the room. Well, they are, but not like, rules and shit. Major turn off, you know? “Thank you,” he says, breathless when he pulls away. His smile doesn’t feel real, on his face, but he knows it’s meant to be there, meant for Kravitz only. “For being there for him, I mean. You didn’t have to, but you did, so… thank you.”

Kravitz looks about as dazed as Taako feels, lips pulled up at the corners and cheeks darkened to the tips of his ears. When he smiles, really smiles, it sends his heart soaring. “It’s what anyone would do.” Sparing a glance over his shoulder, he nudges them closer to the rift. “Go on, go be with your family.”

He wants to dispute literally anything he just said-- tell him that they’re not his family, what gave you that idea (a lie, but one that they all spoke in unison), tell him that _no_ , not everyone would comfort a lich of all things, would comfort anyone in this situation, and that’s why Taako loves him, the absolute fucking jackass--

Taako stumbles through the rift and nearly chokes on his saliva. Merle catches him without looking away from some conversation he’s carrying on his Stone of Farspeech. Disoriented, he turns his head back to the rift sealing behind him, blinking dumbly at it, mouth agape. 

He fucking _what_?

_5\. The Heart I Have Sought for Eons, Belonging to the one we love, a shared existence, a shared pulse, stolen and pawned off to the highest bidder._

_[There is a doodle of Magnus bleeding from his stomach. Varali sits over him, hands extended to heal the wound. Merle stands off in the distance, looking scandalized.]_

**⋆✧⋆**

It begins with a recipe. Ren would tell Kravitz to specify that it’s _the_ recipe, the one that’ll bring the big dogs in town barking on their metaphorical porch steps, but really, it’s just a recipe. She’d half dragged him, half carried him off their shift that night with Johann on speed dial before they could even find her wagon, and lured them into the depths of her apartment with the promise of food.

This was, naturally, a poorly disguised excuse for all three of them to be in the same room together for longer than an hour, but that was neither here nor there. 

“No, listen, dude, it’d be so fucking metal--” Johann is saying, and has been saying for the past ten minutes.

“--We’re not going to wear morphsuits to a fine arts museum. I’m already banned from three of them thanks to you, and I’d like to at least be able to mock _some_ contemporary art in peace.” Kravitz swings his legs away from the counter, head rested against a closed cabinet. Johann is, similarly, sprawled out across the kitchen floor, both of them managing to be inexplicitly in Ren’s way and neither budging. The chef in question lets out a frustrated groan, pulls at her hair, and holds a hand out in Kravitz’s direction.

He passes her a shot of vodka wordlessly. The glass slams against the counter to her left once drained. “Johann, fella, I’d be down faster than a bloodhound if there weren’t so many lesbians that just eat this art shit up.” He lets out a long, drawn-out groan, and tries to hit her with his best puppy dog face. “Stop makin' that dumb fuckin face, you know I can’t see. Kravitz, try this. It needs somethin', but I’m drawing blanks.”

He takes the spoon offered to him and downs it in one fell swoop. “Needs more onions.”

“ _Shit_. Johann--”

“--Ughhhhhhhhhhhh--”

“--Go ahead, take your own sweet time, ain’t like this is your dinner or nothin.” Johann slowly pulls himself to his feet, grumbling and adjusting his hat as he thrusts open the fridge. 

A pause, the rustling of a paper wrap. An onion aimed to hit Kravitz square between the eyes and caught only by his hand rushing to block it. “What did _I_ do?” He asks, slowly peeling the outside layer as Ren wipes her knife. 

Johann plops himself back onto the kitchen floor. “Broke bro code.”

“Getting a boyfriend doesn’t even touch bro code, you dramatic ass!” Kravitz chucks the end of the onion at him. “You’re just mad I got the money.”

Johann laughs a low and drawn out thing. “Should’a been me, man.”

Ren points the knife at him accusingly, face twisted in anger. This is, however, effectively ruined by the tears rolling down her face. “Oh, hush up. If you wanted the cash you’d have been fixin’ to tell Avi about your big fat crush.” Returning to her chopping, she shoots a smile Kravitz’s way. “Kravitz just proved he’s the only one around here that isn’t gay _and_ useless.”

The conversation lulls after that, passing mentions of how work went, whether or not Garfield tried to sell Johann a new mini fridge today for ten thousand gold because it’s ‘super cool’, discussing the theory that the old man that ends up hanging from a lamppost in Never Winter’s shopping district every single day (without fail) is a time traveler, you know. Little things.

Halfway through devouring the fruits of Ren’s labor and debating the phonetics of ‘bourguignon’ (None of them are exactly sure, but whatever it is it sure as _fuck_ isn’t pronounced like ‘bourbon’), Johann opens the fridge. There’s nothing out of the ordinary in of the act itself, but the door swings open, his hand still extended. “Hey, uh, guys? Come here?”

Peering over Johann’s shoulder, Kravitz finds a raven peering up at them from atop the eggs, head tilted. He blinks at the raven. The raven blinks back. “...Is that sanitary?” Ren asks. 

“ _This form exists so long as I will it to, so I'll have to say yes on that_ ,” says the Raven in response.

Johann faints then and there. They watch him fall-- that is, Kravitz, Ren, and the raven, and then promptly fill in the empty space he leaves behind. There are worries of a concussion, but, well. He’s got the durability of a Fantasy Nokia brand Stone of Farspeech, so they’re not _too_ worried? 

“ _...Right. Ren, Kravitz, I need the two of you to get something for me. It’s on your list, my child, no need to worry.”_ The raven buries its beak into the underside of a wing. “ _I will open a rift through the opening of this refrigerator. It’s not exactly… safe for you to try and navigate your way to this location on your own just yet. You have five minutes to gather what you may need._ ”

There’s no mad rush for items, exactly. Kravitz has to race out to Ren’s wagon to get his raven feathered cloak from her trunk and to get her back up wand, but other than that they’re ready to leave after they retrieve their shoes from the entrance. Ren slaps a hastily written sticky-note onto Johann’s head, effectively slamming him back into the tile before he could right himself. “Might I ask, Raven Queen ma’am, what I could be needed for? It just don’t seem proper for me to go, given, well, given everything.”

“ _You are… needed for something outside my jurisdiction. I cannot tell you what for, seeing as even I remain unawares of your necessity, as excellent a wizard as you are._ ”

Kravitz stops a joke about Istus’s incessant involvement at the tip of his tongue, instead electing to take a step back as the raven begins to tear a rift through the Prime Material Plane with its beak, a swift and elegant air about it until the inside of Ren’s fridge and the bird are, effectively, black matter hanging in the air.

He doesn’t wait for his Queen to beckon him through the threshold of the rift, pulling Ren through by her wrist. A shudder runs through them from the moment they pass through realms as if they’d just thoroughly coated themselves in gelatin. Bright lights obscure his vision, arm instinctively flying to block the worst of it. He waits long enough for his brain to comprehend the carnival rides roaring at all sides around him before he continues on, mumbling apologies to the robots crowding the streets. 

“What’re we here to get?” Ren asks, sidestepping a particularly rambunctious robot child before she trips over it. “Hopefully it ain’t one of these freaky little folks, cause I draw the line at bot napping.”

“We’ve been sent to retrieve a phylactery.” He doesn’t spare a glance at the list as he passes it to Ren; he memorized it weeks ago. “My Queen gives us directions to the Parrot Pen in Animal Row after explaining who it belongs to.”

She makes a little noise in the back of her throat, squinting at the list. Pocketing it, she hurries to his side. Kravitz can’t tell if she’s looking at him or their surroundings, his eyes trained on the skyline. He can’t quite explain _why_ he’s looking above instead of around, other than the little tug against his soul urging him to stay vigilant, to keep an eye out for the unusual. “You reckon the food here’s edible?” Muses Ren as she blows hair out of her face, freckled nose scrunching. Before Kravitz can get a word’s edge in she reaches out and grabs a stick of cotton candy off of the nearest display. Instantly, blue spun sugar turns to writhing, hissing snakes, all dead set on devouring Ren’s hand. She flings it into the nearest bush. “Shit! Fuck! Knew I should’a listened to my mama when she told me not to eat food from them robots in antique dresses!”

Though he spares his friend a quirked brow and a brief once-over for any bite marks, he soon returns to his previous engagement of squinting at a dark shape in the horizon and-- nope, that’s just a giant inflatable flamingo. A robot in neon yellow brushes against his shoulder and vanishes around a corner as it calls for friends. 

A flash of bright light, celestial against the neon lights. A shape, visible to his eye even through the rows of tents and buildings. Hulking, ambling straight for them, up and over obstacles. There’s doubt, here, a hope that they are simply two people on separate paths that converge on a forked road. That in mind, he forces his eyes ahead. Ignores the urging against his heart, yelling, begging, screaming for him to fight.

The “parrot pen” looms at the end of their street, a mocking bright green against the dark flooring and pitch-black sky. A cacophony of children’s laughter filters their way, birds shrill cries drowned out by merry conversation. The parrots themselves are the same as the rest of the attendees; robotic, painted bright colors that glow under blacklight lamps. 

The gorilla that bursts through the Funnel Cake booth is in a similar state, though the paint on its body has long flaked off, leaving nothing but the angered red of its pupils. It doesn’t look at Kravitz, doesn’t acknowledge the fear that pools in his stomach at the thought of having to face something that could finally break him; a constant fear that flows like a turbulent river, one that no reassurances of what awaits him beyond death can soothe. 

Instead, it turns, slowly, neck creaking, to face Ren. 

“Well I'll be,” she weakly says, right before the animatronic gorilla charges her.

The rest is, as they say, history. With half of the booths in their surrounding area reduced to rubble, Kravitz manages to get his scythe underneath a panel where the gorilla’s neck meets its head and launches it as far as he could. Which, admittedly, wasn’t far, but further than a living mortal could and, coincidentally, just far enough to knock a leg out from the Ferris wheel.

Kravitz stays long enough to see the beginnings of the collapse. Ren has to force him from where he’s rooted in place to the Parrot Pen, calling him all manner of insults. With the parrot pen itself proving to house nothing little than nuts and bolts paraded as endangered species, they pass through the back door, halting before they could fall directly onto a staircase that extends up, towering even above the known space of the Parrot Pen.

Behind them, a carnival ride collapses and flattens the Parrot Pen and its inhabitants.

Left with no choice but to go forward, they ascend the staircase into the mirror maze.

**✧**

“Hey man, you good?” A comforting hand rests on the space between Kravitz’s shoulder. He groans in response, swatting at the hand that pulls his glasses off of his face. Johann pushes the bowl of peanuts closer to him, hand falling back to his side. “I’ll take that as a no, then.”

Someone throws a glass across the tavern. Some large, burly man sitting on a crate catches it and sends it soaring back to the original perpetrator--the woman named Asena who cut off his casts and refuses to speak to him in anything but dwarven, he thinks? All he can see is vague silhouettes. He knows that the woman on her left is Varali, only because she came here with Lucretia and Magnus, but that’s about it. Ren, meanwhile, is tucked into some corner and talking animatedly with Lucretia, their shoulders nearly touching. It’s almost sweet, Kravitz thinks before he returns to drowning his sorrows with another shot of rum. “I don’t know what to fucking _do_ , Johann,” he says, wincing at the burn. He often prides himself on his premium taste in alcohol-- that is, the fact that he cherishes vintage reds and nothing else-- but Ren had insisted that she needed alcohol and she needed it half an hour ago, so here they were in the Smashed Lantern. “Like, listen. I knew Barry was a lich from like, day one, and I know you know who knows, but I don’t want to get this dude thrown into necromancy jail! There are perfectly legal ways to do necromancy for science’s sake and he’s been doing them, but _something_ happened with that whole shitfest because, Barry, dude. Necromancers aren’t usually good. Necromancers usually kill people for their goddamn hearts to summon like, dead gods and stuff. I don’t even think Barry could bring himself to kill someone! Taako showed me a video of him crying because his wife smiled at him! Oh, _fuck_ , I’m going to have to arrest Taako’s brother-in-law! Shit!”

“I’ll drink to that, brother,” says a spectacularly wasted patron. Kravitz’s lip twitches and Johann gives him a dead look, which does nothing to deter this patron. But they’re not going to do anything, because confrontation? Ew.

“...Kravitz, man, I have no idea why you’re telling me this. You know I’m like, the last person that can help you with your weird… goddess… issues… right?” Johann twirls the tiny umbrella of his drink, cheek resting against his palm. “Like, I can let you know right now that Taako and his entire family? They’re not good people, not really. They’re all kinda assholes.”

“Thank you, Johann, you’re so good at reassuring people that everything's going to be fine, you know that?” Kravitz says, deadpan. Johann runs his hands through his hair, throws back the rest of his drink, and glares at him something fierce. Across the room, Varali is laughing as Asena lifts her into the air with an arm, grinning wolfishly to the gathered onlookers. Magnus and his wife sit with them, a light in their eyes that terrifies Kravitz to no end. Lucretia laughs at something Ren says, and his friend looks floored, eyes wide and jaw halfway to the floor. He would normally shout something at her across the bar, just to see her clam up and see her entire face flare up in embarrassment, but he’s sort of busy having a crisis right now.

“I have a point, man, just lemme get to it. So they’re assholes-- well, Julia isn’t, but we all know that-- but they’ve done _good things._ We wouldn’t even have Ren if they didn’t decide to go on that weird adventuring kick they’re all refusing to call anything but an ‘Elven gap year’, and Taako said my music was nice once, which, I knew that already, but like…” Shrugging, he leans down onto the bar to bring his gaze level with Kravitz’s. “...What I’m thinking is like, Istus wouldn’t have sent you their way if there wasn’t an ending. Dunno if it’s going to be happy, but it’s kinda shitty to worry about fate, you know?”

“I guess.” A shout from the door, the fluttering of wings as Kravitz finally reaches out to take his glasses from the top of Johann’s head. His fingers are numb to the tips, senses dulled. His heart stops beating, long enough to make him dizzy, but as the shouting and cheering rises, he finds himself blissfully ignorant of _why_ he should care.

The drunken patrons titter over in his direction, cheering on some ‘feathered shit’, as one woman so eloquently put it. Kravitz barely has enough time to process what animal has feathers before a white raven settles on the beer tap immediately in front of him, feet and wings shifting to keep itself balanced. Johann opens his mouth to ask about it, and Kravitz starts to explain it to him-- about the many birds of his Queen, and how this one must be a messenger or a spy; instead, a wheezing sound leaves his throat. Ice-cold fear runs down his back as he tries to speak and, again, gets a desperate sound that rattles in his chest. With his eyes wide, terrified, he realizes that his heart hasn’t taken a single beat in the past forty seconds. He turns back to the white raven by fractions. 

The white raven says nothing. It looks at him, unblinking, and slowly tilts its head, as if questioning his distress. If it was an extension of the Raven Queen, she would have comforted him by now, surely. She would never let him suffer in vein, or suffer and be left to wonder why him, and why she was not there for him. This raven is unfeeling, no kindness in its golden eyes. It rights its head as Kravitz reaches out to it, hands trembling and cold. It leans forward to rest its head against its palm, body sagging in what had to be relief.

It takes off out the door without another word as Kravitz’s heartbeat begins to pound in his chest again. 

Johann takes him home without a single word uttered about the white raven.

And when he wakes, drenched in sweat and a yell torn from his throat, he sits on his bed and trembled, hand against the scar across his chest. No air is enough to bring the sensation of the nightmare away, as much as he wills it. No tear shed is enough for him to be able to know why he wakes terrified of a death stolen from him, kept safe at the side of his queen for the remainder of his waking hours. Logically, he knows that his soul was with the Raven Queen, but in the seconds it took for him to find her, he’d been given a nightmare to threaten the peace of his night.

He calls Taako that night with barely a voice to speak, barely a mind to listen to anything other than his boyfriend’s hushed whispers as he bakes a cake. Neither of them mentions the hour, or Barry, or white ravens, or try and comfort one another-- there were nights, for that, they know. Nights where one or both were willing to pry themselves open and lay themselves bare. This night wasn’t one of those, the wounds too open, fears kept from overflowing by surface tension alone. It would all burst if one of them decided that it was too much and went to the other. And so they remained, in their respective apartments, keeping themselves grounded the only ways they knew how.

Kravitz doesn’t fall back asleep, but by the time Taako’s soft snores fill his end of the call, there are bandages to cover the skin he broke trying to claw his way into his chest cavity in his sleep, and his pulse has finally evened out. The fear is there, certainly, but he can bring himself to numb his senses until he can close his eyes and imagine himself there beside Taako. It’s not the same as the real thing, but it’s a good enough substitute.

He doesn’t see the white raven a second time.

He prays he never will again.

~~**_5\. The Phylactery of my love's blood, lost to time and space, stolen from her sleeping form by ancient humans who sought to warp the universe to their whims._**~~

~~**_I am unsure of how to get to it, as nothing is ever in the same place twice in Hubert's Fun Time Carnival, but I have been told there is an entrance in the Parrot Pen. Your directions are below._ ** ~~

~~**** ~~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys!! I'm terribly sorry for being gone for like,,, a month now? School's been kicking my ass and I wasn't in a good place mentally for a bit, but I'm back and this chapter is finally done! It feels so much longer than it actually is because it was supposed to go one way and then I came up with the fucking EXCELLENT concept of Hubert's Fun Time Carnival, so things got a bit wacky. I hope this super long chapter makes up for my absence!!!
> 
> Constitution Saving Throws in Hubert's Fun Time Carnival: Kravitz (19, advantage), Taako (20), Barry (8), Ren (6), Lucretia (17)
> 
> Items in Istus's/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors  
> 4\. Sapphire gems and an Opal necklace from the Astral Plane, A Vase  
> 5\. The Heart of Our Love, The Phylactery of Fate


	6. Fast and the Furious 6: Emotional Constipation Makes For Poor Media

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m Merle Highchurch, and you are…?”
> 
> “I am the fires that snuff out rainforests, The battle cries of loved ones avenged, the corpses of war that turn into towering trees, the sunken ships turned to compost—”
> 
> “—So, how are we doing this?” Sloane asks, tilting her head in his direction. Taako promptly tunes out Fantasy Poison Ivy's little temper tantrum. “Do we like, kill her, or what?”

Taako doesn’t go to therapy often. This is for two reasons. 

Number one: He’s so fucking _busy_. Like, do you know how hard it is to balance university on top of a job (which is currently babysitting Mavis and Mookie for Merle’s nights out and tutoring the poor fuckin Transmutation 101 students), on top of Emissary work on top of being a good and proper boyfriend for his Main Boy. Lup calls this an excuse. He has decided to agree to disagree. She says that isn’t how this works. They're working on it.

Number two: he’s been told he’s exceptionally stubborn when he puts his mind to it. And _listen_. He might not have the motivation to clean his room (or his part of the lab, for that matter) on a good day, but by god is he going to reimagine reality as he knows it even if it kills him. _Then_ he’ll consider cleaning his room, and Lup will then promptly remind him to do such, and he’ll glare at her and decide that binge-watching all of Fantasy Queer Eye for like, the fifth time is a much more productive use of his time. It’s a cycle.

Taking these factors into consideration, it’s to the surprise of absolutely no one that he’s seething as Lup fireman carries him into the lobby of his therapist’s office. He doesn’t thrash, because he’s a good brother and knows she’s got a bad shoulder ever since she ate shit in the elemental plane, but he does fold his arms and kick his legs a bit. “Lovely morning, Brad,” Lup calls out, cheery as a sunflower in a mid-afternoon sun.

“It is, isn’t it! It’s wonderful to see you again, Taako. Don’t worry about waiting; you’ve already got an appointment penned in a few minutes from now.” He says, smiling wide enough to blind Taako with those unnaturally white teeth of his. He wants nothing more than to knock them right out of his jaw.

He tries to glare a hole in-between Brad’s eyes as Lup carries him past, lip raised into a snarl. The orc remains unperturbed by the murder in his eyes, smiling amiably even as he yells, “I’ll bust your Goddamn kneecaps, _Bradson_ , don’t you fucking test me!” 

Lup only puts him down when the elevator door opens to reveal the second floor and, even then, unceremoniously throws him into a waiting room chair. His arms remain folded across his chest, eyes stubbornly set on the boring beige wall in front of him. Fantasy Mariah Carey plays over the intercom. Muffled conversation drifts through the room behind him, the ticking of a wall clock louder than any spoken words. He very stubbornly refuses to look on either side of him, even if he knows just who exactly is eating about a hundred and fifty grapes to his left and waiting for an opportunity to speak, and sure as _fuck_ knows who’s playing a game on her Stone of Farspeech to his right. The clock continues ticking. If he strains enough, he can hear some pompous sounding son of a bitch complaining about how cursed magic is, something something my parents, something something crab. A grape is held into his peripheral. “Long run this time,” Sloane says, “What did you in?”

“Fuck if I know.” Popping the grape in his mouth, he gestures to Lup with his thumb. “Whatever it was made this jackass decide for me that I needed a chat with the shrink.”

Lup scowls at him, and takes Sloane’s proffered grape with a mumbled thanks. “You broke a jar of garlic and spent an hour crying over it. Barry had to run to the store in his pajamas to get you a new one so you’d stop.”

Sloane hisses through her teeth with sympathy, her response cut off by the opening of a door across the hall. A Firbolg sullenly exits, leaving Hekuba’s stout figure in the doorway. Her eyes widen at the sight of Taako— not him simply being there; any old blood between her and Merle had cooled years ago. No, she seems surprised at the mere concept of him, sitting in a shitty linoleum chair and waiting for a therapy appointment that he’s been missing for the past two months. “Sloane,” she says, nodding towards the inside of her office. “Hope you brought some to share.”

“...I might,” Sloane says as she gets to her feet. Waving in the twins’ direction, “Depends on whether or not you’re going to try and get me to talk about my childhood again. Call me when your appointment is done, Taako. We can get lunch.”

Their chatter fades as the door closes. Taako bounces his leg against the floor, chewing on the inside of his cheek instead of saying any of the threats currently on the tip of his tongue. “I hate you,” he instead settles on saying. Lup’s brow twitches, but she remains silent. “I hate you and I hate my therapist and these dumb fucking beige walls.”

“Hm, they do rather suck, don’t they?” Says a half-elf that exits the door nearest Taako, adjusting his fake glasses. There are tear stains on his cheek, and his sniffling is all gross and congested. He gestures to the open door. “I was told to send you in.”

Taako throws his head back with a groan, shoving himself off of the chair. He nearly knocks over the half-elf as he passes him, ear flicking back to hear Lup’s apology for his behavior. He scoffs and slams the door behind him. It rattles a painting of eyes (who the fuck _commissions_ that??) on the nearest shelf and shifts the water in a vase on the coffee table in the center of the room, but he doesn’t flinch, and neither does the man waiting for him on a black leather armchair, a glass of water in his hand. “Merle said hi,” he says in way of greeting, waving a hand over the loveseat across from John until it turns into the suitable blue velvet for him to dramatically lounge across. 

“No he didn’t,” John says almost immediately, immaculate blonde brow raised as he lifts the water to his lips. This is, naturally, how the interaction always goes; Taako says something about Merle thinking of John, and John shoots it down because it’s been years since they’ve last spoken. Taako knows this. He is, admittedly, a bit of an ass. But so is John. “How have your classes been?”

“Ugh, _pass_. Just know it’s going, and that elves should just get a bone tossed to them if they’re over one-twenty.” He takes the proffered glass of water and downs it in one go. “Alright, my turn. How’re the kids?”

Taako and John have, admittedly, broken the laws of confidentiality more times than either can count. Taako would say it’s because rules are made to be broken, and also fuck the government. John would say it’s because Taako only opens up if he’s treated like an equal, not someone to be interrogated and treated as ‘other’. It goes without saying that Taako doesn’t like that John knows this. “They’re fine. Valerie had to go to the doctor for her check-up, said that any lasting effects of the illness has been reversed.” Writing on his notepad, “have you had any changes in your life recently? Something to disrupt the cycle that keeps you distracted?”

Taako shrugs and picks at a loose thread on his sleeve. He's _not_ going to trust this bastard with anything about the gods because come on, Taako might tell him more about his childhood than any member of his found family could piece together in a century, but he’s not fucking stupid. “Got a boyfriend. Lost my job. Not in that order. Did some weed a few days ago with Magnus and Lup— wouldn’t recommend it. Keep seeing birds.”

“What do birds have to do with any of that?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Johnny boy.” Taako pulls his knees to his chest, grateful that the bird comment threw him off of the whole ‘lost a job but gained a boy’ deal. He didn’t want to talk with his therapist about his boyfriend. Or the LAH. “You haven’t been going to Public Speaking Seminars. Why?”

“Same reason you haven’t been coming here.” Taako almost bites out a retort, but John’s smile is knowing, analytical, so he keeps it to himself. “How are you really, Taako?”

“Truthfully?” John nods, and Taako wipes his nose, ears twitching, and that's the kicker, isn't it. The truth. Contrary to popular belief, he is capable of it, if he really feels like it. More often than not, he doesn't, which typically leads to him crying on the kitchen floor surrounded by garlic and getting snot on his brother-in-law's jeans. He fidgets with the hem of his sweater, stubbornly refusing to look up from his lap. Shame colors his cheeks. “I’m everywhere and nowhere at once. The dreams keep happening again, which sucks, and I know _why_ they’re happening but it’s not something I can trust you with, no offense dude, my thesis needs a fifth revision, I think my boyfriend has untreated trauma but again, can’t trust you and his whole deal is just straight-up _weird_ , I’m tired even when I do get sleep and everything’s cold all the time.”

“Alright.” John relaxes into his armchair, finally, and smiles at Taako. It’s still not as warm as it could be, but then again John was never someone that struck Taako as being capable warmth. “that’s something.”

Taako and Sloane don’t get lunch. Instead, thirty minutes after Taako entered John’s office, he emerges with a slip of paper in his hand that gets pocketed quickly, quietly. He’d read the writing on the page briefly, on his way out, only to stop. Only to glance back at John, to see him staring outside with his hands clasped behind his back, watching birds as they fly by. 

Taako and Sloane don’t get lunch. Instead, he finds her sitting on a chair across the room with Lup standing by her side, arms folded, and pauses at the anxiety that rolls off of her in waves; her hands tremble, so she wrings them together, and her shoulders are hiked up nearly to her drooping ears. If Taako hadn't known better, hadn't been there when Sloane well and truly broke down some few years back, he'd take this stance to mean 'Imposter!!!!'. Sloane whips her head up at the sound of John’s door opening, and _there,_ a spark of hope in her eyes. For what, Taako can’t tell. Lup gestures for her to speak, unfolding her arms. “Hekuba told me you’ve got some weird stuff going on. She said maybe...” Biting her lip, “...maybe you could help me.”

**✧**

There is a temple on the way between Neverwinter and Goldcliffe. You wouldn’t find it unless you knew what you were looking for; it blends into the scenery seamlessly. Even then, with Sloane leading the three of them up the steps, arms outstretched and grand, Taako knows that they shouldn’t be counted as one of the few aware of its existence. Merle blinks at it, squints like he’s staring directly at the sun. Magnus has a hand on his ax, eyes wide and searching for danger. “Who the fuck had a cleric set up shop here?” Taako asks— a question everyone wanted to ask but no one decided to say. 

Sloane’s smile is grim. “No one knows. It’s not even registered.” The inside is overgrown, discrete and hidden just like the outside. The shadows react to Sloane in a way it doesn’t for Taako, but the plants stretch and dance around Merle. “Hurls got the reports from me after I kept waking up in here. Said the only registered temple is in Goldcliffe and dedicated to Eilistraee.”

“Oh, that must be the one Ren goes to,” Magnus says, at the same time Taako and Merle freeze in their tracks and slowly turn to Sloane.

“Kid, what do you mean by ‘kept waking up in here’?” Merle is the first to break the stiff silence, his palms already out, wooden arm stretched out into the sunlight to get a feel of something. Taako wouldn’t know. Never cared for all that faith shit, just sort of… believed. Obviously, it was enough because _damn_ did he make it out good in life, but. Still. 

The altar is eroded under the stress of years and years, but Sloane doesn’t pause to check for structural integrity before she sits on it in one swift motion, crossing her legs and resting her palms on the surface behind her. “Been happening on and off for a few months now. I go to sleep, happy and content with my wife, you know the deal, and then I get these dreams. Always start out the same. me, standing outside this temple back in its prime, and this woman facing the altar. She’s got this fancy dress on, all old and shit, but such a nasty look on her face every time I make it up to her.” Picking at her sleeve, “always talk to me about restoring the old gods, infinite power, all that Jazz.”

“What, and you don’t want it?” Taako asks, scowling at Magnus when he jabs an elbow into his ribs. It’s a genuine question, goddamnit. Sloane of two years ago would’ve been all over that shit.

“I would’ve, once upon a time.” She grips a vine with an iron-wrought fist, glaring at it until it wilts. “Not anymore. I’ve got the shop, and Hurley and Hekuba say that I need to settle down some time or I'll never stop running. Whatever _this_ is? I don’t want a part of it. I want the dreams to stop, to wake up in bed for once. Eat breakfast in my own home.”

Magnus opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. Instead wanders past Sloane and through a rotted door. Merle glances at Taako. Taako furrows his brow and looks around the temple, trying to find a way to transmit his thoughts to words. Instead, he settles on saying, “then why don’t you tell her that?”

Sloane blinks at him, face schooled into disgruntled annoyance, the same look anyone gets when he isn’t the smartest person in the room. 

The ring on his thumb glows. “You can’t sever bonds with words,” Istus says, and she sounds amused like she knows what Taako meant in theory and not in practice. “But you can sever words with bonds and words mend bonds and bonds open doors.” Their connection fades before Merle could demand an explanation, but Taako simply hums, scratching his chin. 

“Uh, so, anyone care to explain what the fuck that just was? Like, do you idiots have some secret rock paper scissors game going on or..?” Sloane, thankfully, doesn’t look like she’s about to shit herself after hearing Istus’s terrifying, omnipotent voice.

“It was bond theory,” Taako says, sharing a look with Merle. “No idea what most of that means, but the first part…” He shrugs. “That’s her way of telling us that it’s something we can fix in person. You meet this goddess in dreams, right? So all we have to do is enter a dream with you. Easy peasy.”

She stares at them, unblinking. Then, with a shrug, she slides off of the altar. “Sure, fuck, why the hell not.” Tilting her head, “Magnus, whatever door you’re trying to lockpick, it won’t open. Trust me, dude, I’ve--”

The sound of a door creaking open silences her. Magnus appears back in the doorway, smiling sheepishly. “Sorry, what were you saying?” He asks, no snark in his tone, all sincerity and goodness. Taako resists the urge to punch that look right off his face. “I couldn’t hear you.”

“You know what? Doesn’t matter.” Turning to Taako, “You really think you can get into my dreams?”

The smile he gives her is one of his best; disarming, revealing sparkling white teeth and one hundred percent unfiltered confidence. “Guess there’s only one way to find out, my man.”

There’s a name to this magic, Taako knows. It’s rarely used, feared by all from the moment the incantation was transferred from thoughts to words, from words to ink on paper, from ink to _in_ _tent_. Merle opts out of helping him cast it, handling the ancient artifacts that Magnus hauls up from the storage room in the back. Sloane rests on the altar, shifting uncomfortably against the stone and smacking dust from the pillow at thirty-second intervals. It was in elven, an ancient word twisted around a language he has painstakingly unlearned in his years away from cold, distant family and loving, but oh so dead immediate family. _Patainolar_ , said the ancient, dusty tomes in the Catacombs, back when Taako could touch them without Lucretia smiling sadly at him from the gates, his replacement snapping at him to look with his eyes while her hands snag books from out of view and push them forward, a dangerous glint in the looks they share. 

He knows this magic like the back of his hand. It was a contingency plan, a safety net should everything go to hell and he got left alone to pick up the pieces. So he raises a brow at Magnus, sitting to his right in a stiff meditative pose, and matches Merle’s mocking smile, and watches as Sloane raises a dagger to her thumb, presses the blade down until blood pools at the tip, smears against the metal. The dagger passes from Sloane to Merle, then to Taako and to Magnus, the gesture repeated thrice over. 

Taako plunges the knife into a bundle of incense, wipes it on the dried stems, and stabs it into the wood beneath him. A fire on his palm sets it aflame, his arms spread wide as Sloane relaxes into the pillow, loose-limbed and relaxed for the first time since they entered the temple. Magnus’s head falls forward, palms relaxed in his lap. Merle doesn't move from where he’s reclined on one of the steps, X-treme Teen Bible in a tight grip. Taako is the last to fall, stuck immobile, watching the mid-afternoon sun through a hole in the roof as the incense burns through the air and into his lungs.

He blinks once, and the shadows shift across his face.

He blinks twice and sees nothing but dark.

He blinks thrice, and sees a woman, facing a stone altar. He is not laying down but standing, limbs loose and eyes open. There is a tug against his chest that desperately urges him from this temple, begs him to follow the white raven that watches him from a perch until he is back home, and home wraps his arms around him and they are safe, so long as the white raven stays out of home’s sight. 

Merle drops the X-Treme Teen Bible to the floor, jaw dropped and glasses shifting through the colors of the rainbow. He, unlike Taako, sees the woman as she is, her very being. He, unlike Taako, knows that his wooden arm is branching out into nightshade and barbs to keep him safe from her. Magnus keeps his ax on hand, eyes narrowed into slits as he tracks not the woman but Sloane, posed to back her up the moment she decides that peace is not an option.

Taako doesn’t look at the woman, at her hair made from vines and grass and flowers and the moss stuck to her skin, or the wood and dirt that makes up her skin. Instead, he looks at the white raven that watches him. It does not bring comfort, not in the way that the other ravens would, with their unblinking golden eyes, but it grounds him to know that he isn’t alone in this plane of the in-between. “You dare to bring company to my realm?” Comes the voice of the woman, cracking with disuse. “After you spend months rejecting my will?” There is a rage in the way she trembles from head to toe, hands held into fists. Taako fusses with his rings as he follows Magnus, closer and closer to the woman facing the altar and Sloane, sitting atop it with a scowl.

“ _You’re_ the one trying to get me to buy your altruistic bullshit. Ever stop to think that there’s a reason why I never—“

“—We’re protected,” Taakos says, still staring at the white raven. Where has he seen this fucking thing before? “Under the jurisdiction of Lady Istus, we can’t be touched by you, and can freely walk through this realm until our jobs are done.”

The woman whips around to face him at that, face cracking with disgust. She doesn’t move to attack, though. “Then you should be helping _me_ , and my cause, rather than trampling on all the work I’ve done to break free of my prisons. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done for the sake of the old gods and our legacy.” Sloane scoffs but otherwise says nothing. “I have leveled the populations of this pathetic planet for slights less than yours, raven girl. Do you think I can be stopped by you?”

Merle steps in between them. Taako unfolds the list from his pocket, squinting at the writing, before passing it to Magnus, who vanishes into the back room with a nod. “Hi, uh, I think we got off on the wrong foot here,” he says, X-treme Teen Bible back in his arms. “I’m Merle Highchurch, and you are…?”

“I am the fires that snuff out rainforests, the battle cries of loved ones avenged, the corpses of war that turn into towering trees, the sunken ships turned to compost—”

“—So, how are we doing this?” Sloane asks, tilting her head in his direction. Taako promptly tunes out Fantasy Poison Ivy's little temper tantrum and leans against the backside of the altar. “Do we like, kill her, or what?”

“Nah, I’ll just break the bond between you two. Easy shit, I’ve done it like, dozens of times. Cover for me, I’ll be behind the altar.”

(Taako has, in fact, only done this four times under Davenport's supervision, but she doesn’t need to know that.)

Behind the altar, Taako squints as he communicates with the white raven opposite of him with only hand gestures. It tilts its head, golden eyes shining in the shadows it is submerged in. Then, without acknowledging him, it takes off over his head. It lands on his left knee a second later holding Merle’s glasses in its beak. “Thank you,” he whispers at it, gingerly removing the glasses and pushing them up the bridge of his nose. 

If he had to describe what Merle’s glasses of true sight were like, he would tell you it’s comparable only to trying to see if the sun is any color other than ‘bright as all hell’. He closes his eyes harshly, hand pressed to his temple until his eyesight adjusts. Even then, he blinks until wetness returns to his eyes and he can focus beyond the pain. 

The temple is alight with bonds, all clustered into the tiny room and centered in the approximation of the goddess’s chest. More are broken than kept alive, all withered and dark things that stretch out of her and curl around the ends of the doors and windows. The goddess herself is gaunt when Taako dares a peek, with bags under her eyes and dried blood on her nails, moss dried up and leaves flaking to the floor around her. There is murder in her eyes, a feeling of sorrow and fury directed to no one and anyone. It is only then that she finishes her monologue with a name— “I am Gaia, and you should worship _me_!” She bellows.

Finding the bond between her and Sloane is the hard part, Taako thinks. He gestures with his hands, pulling them through his hands like threads upon threads, eyeing the unique colors and wavelengths of the strands. He knows Istus’s bond through the shudder that goes through him when his hand skims it, and knows that Pan’s has been severed from the taste of poison on Taako’s tongue. Eilistraee’s bond is only identifiable as being hers from the way that it feels like how Ren describes her-- a hope for betterment when achievable, but, in the case of Gaia, a sorrowful resignation for a lack of change. 

Sloane’s bond is like a livewire when Taako finds it. He curses under his breath as electricity courses through him, all pride and bloodlust with no target. Their bond is an outfit of the worst in either, of the ugly that Taako had gotten the back end of when he moved to Neverwinter, a person that Sloane has long since grown out of, and resentment for all living creatures on Gaia, an ambition to restore the world to what it was, to restore herself to what she was.

It would be admirable if it were any other method than wiping out all of Faerun to start over. 

The cutting is the easy part; with a hissed whisper to his ring, he thrusts his arm into his bag of holding until he brushes fingers with the goddess on the other end of the bag, elegant scissors passed from one hand to the other. The handle is engraved with a peacock, elegant and glistening in the green light filtering through the windows on either side of him. Magnus appears in the doorway, a crate of wines and candles held in one arm like it weighs nothing. He kneels next to Taako and wordlessly shoves it through the bag of holding. 

Then, a quiet voice from the ring says, “Mend the bond between Gaia and Rhea.”

Rhea’s bond is somewhere by Pan’s, two old gods from a long-dead pantheon carried over to the new one, worshipped as fervently as they were in their heydays. Taako adjusts the glasses and, with a nod shared between him and Magnus, he ties a withering thread back together in one second and cuts another in the next. 

Gaia whips around to face Sloane the moment it’s done. She narrows her eyes, glares at Taako as she says, “ _you_.” Taako rounds the altar and meets Gaia in the middle, back straight and head held high. “Child of secrets, you break what is mine, what I have carved out for myself, and yet you cower from the truth and the inevitable.” Sloane says something to Magnus, a whispered reassurance, before she vanishes into a puff of smoke. Gaia smiles, toothy and wicked. Her eyes flicker to Taako’s bonds, stretched out to infinity, connecting him to Merle, to Magnus, to the white raven across the temple. “I wonder, will fate be on your side when death puts your family’s crimes on a scale?”

Taako wakes up not with a gasp, but slowly, limbs heavy and eyes wide as his chest heaves with running nerves. The sky is starry above them, constellations mapped out into infinity. He releases the fists at his sides, wincing as his nails unlodge themselves from his skin. Dimly, he’s aware of Magnus, Merle, and Sloane speaking to their Stones of Farspeech in hushed whispers. Slowly, he lifts his stone to his face and, ignoring the missed calls from Lup, opens Kravitz’s frequency.

“Taako,” He says by way of greeting, and it sounds like relief, sounds like a prayer. 

“Hey,” Taako says, clearing his throat when it comes out more like a choke than anything else. “Are you free?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course I am, babe. Why? Is something wrong?” It’s sickeningly sweet, how concerned he can get. How he always asks if there’s anything wrong, if he can fix anything, because he hurts to know when Taako’s hurting. He laughs, but it’s a hollow sound, and tears sting at the edge of his eyes. He yearns to confess, to tell him the crimes he’s committed, the crimes he’s been an accessory in, all laws broken against the Raven Queen and all gods of laws and rules for the sake of breaking them. How he loves Kravitz more than he has ever loved another man, enough that he knows that Taako isn’t good enough for him, too tired and too ambitious and too selfish for such a good man. How he knows that he will live and die a natural death even if Lup and Barry don’t, even though his crime is equal to theirs. Truths, all burning in his heart and in his lungs, uncontained but repressed all the more because of it. 

Taako is not a man of truths. You already know this.

He is a man of lies, lies meant to protect himself, protect others. 

And so, he says, “I’m fine. I just… Wanted to be with you. That alright?” He hopes it sounds like he means it.

There is a smile in Kravitz’s voice, and that’s when Taako knows that his lies have become a reassurance to him. He is no good for Kravitz as a liar, but he is just as bad for him if he told his truths. “It’s always alright with me. How far out are you?” _Do you need a lift?_

“I’m with Sloane right now, so uh… give me like thirty minutes?”

Kravitz hums, and Taako catches tail ends of conversations about instruments, tuning, timing happening around Kravitz; The symphony must’ve just ended. “I’ll see you then. Love you,” he adds, because fate is a son of a bitch that throws a mean punch right when you need it the least. Taako hums something similar to a response and ends the call quickly, heart beating out of his chest.

Sloane is laughing at something Hurley says over the stone, face contorted as she helps Taako to his feet, and gestures for them to all follow her back out to the battlewagon parked in the bushes. They ride in silence after all respective calls have ended. Taako puts his hand out the window, wizard hat between his knees, and ignores how his hair whips and slaps against his cheeks and ears. The stars are beautiful.

Taako is the last person to get dropped off (“I can walk from here,” he’d said after they pulled to a stop in front of the apartment complex Taako and Merle lived in. Sloane had glared at him and said, “like hell you will,” so he stayed right where he was.) He climbs the stairs up to Kravitz’s dingy apartment, slow and with the brim of his hat dragging against the steps. For once, he bothers with knocking, three weak little things against the wood. His shoulders are slumped, eyes distant, and all he wants to do is fall into Kravitz’s arms the moment he opens the door.

And though he would rather lie, rather fake a smile for the sake of Kravitz, all his grandeur vanished to thin air the moment they make eye contact, and he slumps forward, forehead pressed to Kravitz’s chest and hat limp at his side. He lets himself get herded inside, bundled up in blankets and handed a mug of something warm and leans against Kravitz’s shoulder the moment he’s close enough. 

In moments like this, it’s almost too easy for him to forget how bad Taako is for Kravitz in the long run.

  
  


~~_6\. Vintage wines and candles from a place long gone and dead to my family, the graveyard of a world from before. Words spoken outside of your realm of existence, a parlay to soothe the nerves and bring a home back together. Peace, an offering between gods who were once friends before they were coworkers._ ~~

_[There is a doodle of Gaia, sitting in a rocking chair and holding a hand-knitted sweater. A woman tends to a hearth, smiling at her warmly. A bond stretches between them, carefully knotted back together.]_

**⋆✧⋆**

A week before Taako walked into the last remaining temple of Gaia, Kravitz stands in the wings. Stage right, alone with his thoughts as the musicians tune their instruments. He doesn’t try and sort through the crowd until he finds Taako. He knows that all he’d see are the silhouettes that stretch into infinity. This, in essence, is a comfort. God knows that he’d go clammy at the thought of him being out there, watching him for the first time since they met.

He didn't hear his cue, but he knows that it happened, judging by the look Johann shoots him. Deep breath, adjust your tie, glance at your Raven skull cufflinks, push your glasses up the bridge of your nose. Pretend that your heart still beats as you walk out from the wings until it remembers to start up again. 

Adjust the sheet music, bring the podium up to the proper height because Johann forgot about the shoes that give an extra inch to Kravitz’s height. The calloused right hand that holds a baton in the same way a wizard holds a wand, outstretched. 

Direct the musicians, simple as breathing. Kravitz falls into a trance as his hands move, swift and flowing with the grace of a pond in spring. He knows the smile on his face is at peace, more than he ever would be in his life and undeath. He doesn’t stop to think of how the symphony could go wrong, lets himself fall away into the music and the rhythms. Taps his right foot against the floor, imperceptible to anyone other than the senior citizens with old money in the front row. The swaying in his hips would be scandalous, had this been any other place than progressive Neverwinter. Unbidden, critiques from stuffy humans with wrinkly hands that are too quick with a wooden ruler, ‘ _Don’t dance, you'll distract the audience’_. Keep still, save for your hands. Hear the music, imagine the music, but don’t let your body serve as a conduit. That was what Kravitz was taught, his entire life. 

But his family was never particularly good at listening, as it turned out. ‘ _Music is in the McAllister blood,_ ’ said his Uncle, before he got too sick and had to put down his guitar. ‘ _Don’t ever apologize for being what the Gods made you out to be,'_ said his Grandmother, never understanding his inclination to death but knowing the importance of having something to find comfort in.

So he moves his whole body with the music as it swells, brings himself to still when it lulls until he’s breathless, hands outstretched and sweat beaded on his forehead. The audience is deafening in his ears, grounding him to the present as he bows, low and deep, and brings a rose up to his lips as he rises, cementing this moment to the scent of mildew and rose.

Getting off stage and out to the lobby is a nightmare. Johann follows after Kravitz, hand on his elbow and violin case protectively held against his chest. A quick spell keeps them undetected as they push through the crowd, eyes searching for blonde hair and blue skin or white hair and purple skin. 

An arm winding through Kravitz’s, perfume wafting up to his nose and silk fabric rubbing against the exposed skin of his wrist. A bouquet passed from one free hand to the other, smile knowing. He smiles at Taako before he even turns his head to meet his eye, uncaring as to how he saw through the disguise when the smile he gets from him is secret, hidden beneath a veil of hair. Lup is in front of them with Barry and Angus, all three of them talking animatedly, but not loud enough to be heard over the chatter of outgoing audience members. Johann lets go of Kravitz’s elbow in favor of grabbing onto Magnus, Julia, and Avi, already smiling under their dogged praise. Ren and Lucretia speak in hushed whispers, heads tucked together and cheeks flushed, and if the look of disgust on Taako’s face tells him anything, it’s that they’ve been doing this all night. “You did good, bones,” he says when they look away, free hand communicating directions to his sister. Eyes sparkling with something dark, he drawls, “ _reeeaaaal_ good.”

“Are you sure we’re still talking about my conducting, babe?” Kravitz says, barking out a laugh when Taako digs his elbow into his side. Quiet, a hushed whisper to give him the space to speak the truth, “But for real. You liked it?”

Lips painted black brushing against the side of Kravitz’s ears, closer than necessary for the sake of closeness. “You managed to make classical music look fun. ‘Course I liked it,” Says Taako, eyes sparkling with the mirth of a man showing one card in a deck of many. He sticks out his leg just to flat tire Angus and laughs at the nasty look he gets for his troubles. “Big guy back there offered up his house for dinner. Think you’d like it.” An out, as subtle as Taako can be.

He always gives Kravitz outs when it comes to food and the rest of Taako’s family. It was one of those things that he got a look for when he questioned it, the look that said ‘later’. Kravitz wonders when ‘later’ would be-- after he dies, presumably. “Oh, do you? And how do you know this?” Taako gestures plainly at himself, raising a brow. It’s an old argument, spoken with no venom or bite to their voices. Kravitz asks Taako how he knows he’ll like something, and Taako will scoff and tell him that they wouldn’t be dating if their tastes weren’t fucking impeccable. “Yeah, I--”

There is a raven sitting on a lamppost, watching him approach with golden eyes. Kravitz’s heart is in his throat as he nears it, shoulders slumping the moment he can confirm that it’s a plain raven, with oil slick feathers like the rest of his Queen’s flock. Taako follows his gaze, lips twisting into a scowl, then resignation. “I’ll save you a plate if you’re not back in an hour,” he says, before kissing him with the passion of a man going to war, hands locked around his waist. They stand there for a few seconds, foreheads pressed together, before Taako pries himself away and bouquet in hand, gestures to the Raven. “You make sure my boy gets back for some grub or I _will_ tell Istus.”

The Raven opens its mouth and crows out laughter, voice echoing through the night. The rest of Taako’s family watches it with a mix of horror and apathy before they continue down the path. Ren and Johann pat him on either shoulder as they pass, all sympathy. “ _Empty threats,_ ” She says, head tilted. “ _What...interesting company you keep, my child._ ”

Kravitz shrugs. He doesn’t trust his voice to reply, to not say something out of turn that could be evidence to lock any of Taako’s family up in the Eternal Stockade. He coughs, shakes his head, and instead manages, “Where am I going, my Queen?”

She straightens up, wings adjusting. “ _Come to the Astral Plane. It is better if I show you._ ” 

He doesn’t bother with secrecy when it comes to his portal, simply swings his scythe down in a smooth arc and walks through the rift without a glance to ensure that Taako had vanished at the end of the road. The cold hit him first, uncomfortable against the sweat still dampening his skin and turning his breath to vapor in the air. He suppresses a shudder as he walks through the double doors of the Raven Queen’s throne room, head held high.

She isn’t sitting on her throne, instead of kneeling before it, long hair shielding a figure resting at her knees. Her head whips up at the sight of Kravitz, no longer terror, and comfort and imperceptible, but a woman without any options left available to her. “Eldath delivered him to me this morning,” she says, leaning back enough to reveal a tiefling child, no more than five. “The rest of the pantheon… had nary a clue what to do with him. Istus knows the solution but refuses to tell us, claiming neutrality for the sake of her emissaries' futures. And so they decided I would take him here with me, and wait for you.”

Kravitz kneels next to the boy, presses the back of his hand against his forehead and winces at the fever. “What happened?” He asks, eyeing the child over for any signs of plague. Rare, nowadays, with that fancy vaccine, but still possible.

“A simple tale. Evil spellcaster wants to become a god, turns himself into an eldritch monstrosity, and sends his ward to worlds he shouldn’t have seen. And yet he is still alive. Against my better judgment, I cannot be the one to decide his fate. If he had been a criminal, or dead already, he would find himself happy and free, but…” A sigh, echoing across fourteen voices. “The sixth item on your list was changed by Istus. She does not peer into what we’ve been doing but something made her break this code, just to trade out an instrument for a life. His fate falls upon you, Kravitz.”

His laugh is empty, scorn not at fate or his Queen but the simple fact that he is the deciding factor. “Is there a file on him?” A brief nod. A raven lands on Kravitz’s shoulder, manilla folder in its beak. They sit in silence, looking over the contents of the folder and watching the child take shuddering breaths in, out. He reads over his life, trying desperately to not think about Angus, to put him in the child’s place. Julian Hartgrove, age five. The spellcaster was his legal guardian, all other family members long deceased. He lived a lonely life, but was kind, reaching out to others when no one would do the same for him. His file notes petty thievery as his only crime; little candies and necessities his legal guardian wouldn’t spare for him. 

“He has done no wrong in my eyes,” The Raven Queen whispers, stroking hair from the boy’s eyes. There are tears in the eyes behind her mask, full lips pulled downwards unhappily. “Even you have sinned under my laws, and yet I am more torn here than I was when I saved you.”

“I’ve wronged you only after you brought me back to life,” Kravitz says, wincing at how pathetic he sounds, calm and collected in posture but voice wavering at the indirect acknowledgment of his crimes. Julian’s hand trembles in his. Then, finally, clarity. Finally, truth, as hard as it is to push it above the knot in Kravitz’s throat; “He wouldn’t get the opportunity to break your laws if we let him live.”

The ravens all turn to look at Kravitz, though the Raven Queen’s attention remains trained on Julian. “Explain,” she says, and the ravens blink in unison. “I must understand before I allow your judgment to pass as my will.”

“The soul you have contained in the Eternal Stockade for her own safety, Maureen Miller? She’d tell you the same thing. Us mortals, we aren’t… meant to see beyond what we know. Into different realities. You could make him an emissary, hope that it would mitigate the damage but there’s no honor in making a child an agent of your will. Or you could send him back with a blessing and a few memories removed, and hope he lives the rest of his life in misery, tormented by what he knows but can’t remember. You can take away the memories from our brains, but you can never take what we felt away.” He takes both of Julian’s hands in his, blinking at the floor next to his blue horns. “If I were in his place, if I’d seen the same, that wouldn’t be a life worth living.”

The Raven Queen strokes Julian’s hair, slow, comforting. Her lip twists unhappily, but she nods, and brings her clawed hands to his chest, right above his rapid beating heart. Kravitz tries to pretend that the sight doesn’t raise his nerves, send his barely-beating heart at a hundred miles a minute and bile crawling up his throat. He tries, but he knows he fails because a reassurance wraps around him at all ends, a mother’s embrace that a far-distant part of his mind remembers. Slowly, a ball of light lifts from Julian’s chest, a flickering little thing that dances between the Raven Queen’s hands. It doesn't try to take shape, like most other souls Kravitz had seen in the Astral Plane.

Julian goes still and his skin turns ice cold in Kravitz’s hands. He lowers the hand onto the kid’s chest, watching as his Queen smiles, bright and kind to the soul in her hands. She whispers as low as she possibly can, telling him who she is, why he’s here, and who waits for him in the beyond. Kravitz averts his gaze out of respect, only looking up when sharp nails tip his head up. Her smile is still there, the same kind, affectionate and open expression reserved for only the most special of cases. “Are you able to take the boy’s body to one of my temples?” She asks. Steadfast in pretending they both don’t know the answer already.

“Always, my Queen.”

She opens the portal for him, sending both of them off with a kiss; one pressed to Kravitz’s temple, and another to the tip of Julian’s corpse’s nose. He walks through slowly, head lifted even as people on the street shouted and leaped out of his way. A cursory glance-over tells him that he’s in the Woven Gulch, and he considers telling Ren about the town. He doesn’t know if she would appreciate it, but someone back at the Davy Lamp would. 

The temple in the Woven Gulch is simple, with raven motifs up the ass and a simple walnut altar. Black-cloaked figures abandon previous activities, reading or tending to grieving families or making offerings to the Raven Queen, and turn to Kravitz when he clears his throat. He tries to adjust his cloak around his shoulders without removing a hand from behind the boy’s neck. He cringes at how his shoes echo in the deafening silence. He hands Julian over to a woman with sad eyes that takes him in both arms, wiping the hair from his face. Kravitz tells her his name, date of birth and death. All the necessary information for a proper grave; he’s carved his fair share of headstones. Then, slowly, he folds a raven’s feather securely in Julian’s hand. Pausing in the entrance, sharing a shadowed look with the priests, he says, “The Raven Queen sends her regards.”

He leaves the temple swiftly, ignoring the stares of priests and passersby gathered around the portal. His Queen smiles on the other end, comfort for a sorrow he never knew the source to. There are gasps when he returns to the Astral Plane, but the rift stitches itself back together before the exclamations can reach his ears. Another kiss to his head, imperceptible form shaped to be just a head taller than him so she can properly bundle him in her arms. Words whispered in elvish that Kravitz can’t translate but knows like the back of his hand, a heritage that died with his mother before he held fleeting memories longer than a year. 

As simple as blinking, her embrace is gone, leaving him colder than he was, and he’s standing in front of an unfamiliar wooden door. The craftsmanship is familiar enough for him to blink himself back into reality, adjusting his tie and letting out shaking breaths before knocking on the door, rapid-fire. Julia opens the door, face openly hopeful as she takes in his current state. “He’s back!” She shouts to the insides of the house. Her smile is warm as a bonfire on a winter’s night, calloused hand leading him through a homey hall and into a dining room. Half-eaten plates and familiar faces that horribly conceal how quickly they search him over for injuries. Finding none, Taako leans back gracefully in his chair and gestures to the still-warm and full plate on his right. 

“Good thing, too, I was _this_ fucking close to eating your food myself,” he says. It’s a lie, the same song and dance they’ve always done. “How’d it go?”

He settles into the chair, abandoning his suit jacket around the back and unbuttoning the first few notches in his red dress shirt. “...Weird,” he settles on saying, because how else do you describe it? How do you put words to watching the goddess of death remove a soul, end a life without pain, knowing your family never got the same privilege, and neither will you? Seeing the looks of understanding flashing across the faces of Taako’s family, he purses his lips and reiterates, “weirder than usual.”

“Care to share with the class, homie?” Lup asks, already resuming the decimation of what looks to be half a chicken. 

Um. “No?”

“Sick, alright, keep your secrets. Hey, Luc, pass the salt?” And that’s that. No one pries, though from the looks Johann and Ren keep shooting each other across the table, this stability lasts as long as he remains in this house. He resigns himself to being cornered the moment he’s outside, and finds himself caring little; they’d know eventually whether Kravitz had a say in it or not.

Conversation flows easily at the table, all loud arguments and corrections of embarrassing stories, undercut by genuine questions about Kravitz’s work as a conductor (“Because like, dude. If Johann said you were _this_ kickass we would’ve gone to one of your symphonies sooner,” Magnus had said, much to the chagrin of everyone.) It’s nice, in a way, to let the conversation ebb and flow over him. At some point, Taako goes into a lengthy story about why he, Lup, and Magnus are banned from all Fantasy Forever 21s in a hundred-mile radius, and Kravitz finds himself relaxing into his seat. 

Eventually, food vanishes and the plates are taken to the kitchen by Julia and Magnus, who insist that no one else loads the dishwasher right. Lup and Taako shout after them that they’re cowards and afraid of efficiently utilizing all available spaces. Avi nods solemnly but doesn’t seem to be absorbing anything said in his general vicinity. Then, slowly, Ren drops whatever line of conversation she was carrying with Lucretia to say, “Anyone want to play poker?”

Which is, naturally, how Kravitz finds himself being the only person with both a shirt and pants on in the Burnsides house. Barry and Lucretia are reading on a table nearby, the only two people smart enough to not get into a game of poker with Kravitz. Lup lost her shirt three rounds ago and seems entirely too pleased to be showing off her new bra, and at this rate, Kravitz thinks Taako has been losing on purpose, all stretched out across him without a care in the world. The others have various articles of clothing gone and scattered across the floor with varying stages of apathy, save for Magnus, who is very stubborn as he minds his cards. “You know you can just tap out,” Kravitz says to a tomato red Johann, only to get a finger raised in his direction. “Or don’t. I’m not your mom.” He leans over to look at Taako’s cards, which he is all too proud to show off and squints. Meets Taako’s broad grin. Squints at him instead. “Why.”

“More fun this way,” Taako says, instead of explaining how he’s managed to cheat in strip poker to _lose_. Not that Kravitz is complaining, obviously, but. Well. It’s more of the principle of the matter, more than anything. “Or, it was, but now I’m out of clothes, and _you’ve_ only lost your shoes.”

“He doesn’t lose anything other than the shoes,” Ren says, mournfully, as she pulls off her socks. “Trust me, more than a fair share of folks’ve tried to get him out of his clothes. He just ain’t good at losing.”

“Well, _now_ I know that. I’m out.” Taako picks up the pieces of his clothing scattered around the living room, but only bothers to put on his pants and wrap his shawl around his shoulders. He pauses in the dining room, and the smile he shoots Kravitz is smoldering. “You coming or not, babe?”

Julia, Lup, and Avi wolf-whistle in their general direction when Kravitz abandons his winning hand to follow after him like a lost puppy. He laughs good-naturedly with Taako as they stumble out into the cold together, hanging off each other like the last leaves in fall. There’s less talking after that, and it suits the two of them just fine. They share heated kisses under the moon, against the door of Kravitz’s apartment and then his bed, until the bite eases out of Taako and he’s pliable, gentle with his touches and tender with his words in a way he rarely lets his guard down long enough to permit. It would be then that Kravitz would tell him about what happened with Julian, how he couldn’t even watch the last breath that left his flooded lungs because he was too busy remembering ghosts. Instead, he waits until Taako’s breathing evens out, hot breath brushing against the hollow of Kravitz’s neck in sleep that elves shouldn’t be able to achieve, that he confesses his selfishness to him. Voice quiet enough to not disturb the precarious line of slumber that the two of them are seemingly always teetering on, eyes trained on the wood grain of his ceiling, he describes how Julian’s moments spent alive were too similar to his grandfather’s pneumonia before the plague hit, how deeply it destroyed the life in him, the passion in his bones.

When Kravitz finishes his confession, his heart rate is still steady, smoothed out by the slender hand splayed across his stomach, grounding him to the present. He closes his eyes and breathes out deep. Brings himself to hold Taako tighter, if not for the sake of grounding than for the sake of closeness.

And as he finally drifts to sleep, a white raven perches outside his window. 

This time, he isn’t awake to feel his heart stop for fifty-seven seconds.

~~_6\. An anomaly to magic, too common in these recent days, stuck under your sword of judgment. A life for a life, Mercy where The Will of the Raven Queen falters long enough to be blinded. Swing your sword of judgment, Right Hand of Death, and know that you were not built for indecision._ ~~

_**[There is, oddly enough, a drawing of Julian Hartgrove hugging his parents, reunited at last.]** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would apologize for this update being so late but my tennis elbow got uhhhh Pretty Bad so I think I'm justified,,,, But hey!!! I did it!!! And also we're getting into the Thick of This Shit, so hopefully I can clarify a shit ton of plot threads for y'all by next chapter!! See y'all later this month or next year, depending on how quickly I get this next chapter done :)
> 
> Taako's Stealth check to properly sever Gaia's bond to Sloane and mend the bond between Gaia and Rhea: 16 (+3)
> 
> Current items in Istus/The Raven Queen's possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors  
> 4\. Sapphire gems and an Opal necklace from the Astral Plane, A Vase  
> 5\. The Heart of Our Love, The Phylactery of Fate  
> 6\. Vintage wine, candles, and a bond mended for an old friend.


	7. A Wizard, a Cleric, and Their Two Fighter Friends Walk Into a Historical Site Known for the Genocide of Hundreds of Spell casters. "Want a Hand?" Asks the Cleric, Holding up a Skeleton's Arm. Silence. "Bad Timing?" He Asks. "Bad Timing," The Others Agree.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Taako's not a hero. Taako would watch the world burn if it meant, like, the people he cared about - really cared about - were… were safe and protected.”- Justin Mcelroy
> 
> Warning: This chapter earns the graphic descriptions of violence warning, even though I usually only add it to fics as a precaution since my usual genre of writing tends to be on the violent side. Welcome to the rodeo, folks c];)

_The ground shudders beneath all of their feet, stones and icicles falling and bouncing off of where cobblestone floors turn to snow and dirt. Someone is screaming, yelling himself hoarse, but they don’t bring themselves to figure out who. Can’t bring themselves to. It would make them falter, make them hesitate, and their will cannot waver even for a second. They hold the unfamiliar hilt of a long sword unsteadily as the ground beats like steady drums, the approaching monster letting out a human-like screech. They send a prayer to any god listening, able to listen, not for their safety, but for just a few minutes to spare that may allow the others to escape, for a way to separate them from the rest of the group._

_Rocks behind them start to fall as the monster crests the top of one of the paths, meeting their eyes, and they know their prayers have been answered._

**⋆✧⋆**

  
  


There is something wrong with Davenport’s bond engine. 

Lucretia and Davenport are frantically inspecting it from where it sits, embedded in a circular table and shaking, lights flashing rapidly as it spins around and around. Before, it glowed with the strengthening and formation of bonds, or when any of the eight of them went near it in preparation to project a map of Faerun with little dots indicating their current locations. Barry and Lup are sorting through stacks upon stacks of papers spread out across the table, apprehensive and talking at miles a minute. “Taako,” Davenport says, screwdriver in his mouth, eyeing him suspiciously, “Come down here?” It’s a tight fit, and Lup immediately slots herself over his legs as he shimmies underneath the table. Davenport passes him a monocle, squinting at a sprawl of text across his tablet. “Tell me what you see.”

The bond engine hums under Taako’s hand as he sifts through the bonds, lips twisted and eyes narrowed. It’s hard to tell where their bonds start and where they end, but there’s always been something… familiar about the coagulation of hundreds of bonds tied together. A comfort in knowing that, no matter what happens, these bonds would stay the same, feel the same, hundreds of years later, even when it’s just him and Lup left well and truly alive. Staring up at the bottom of Davenport’s bond engine now, though, he feels no comfort, just.

Empty. 

A false imitation of comfort, twisting like a shapeshifter sheds disguises. This imperfect parroting is known to Taako in the same way that Davenport knew enough about bonds to take one look at the engine and call each and every one of them out of their respective classes and jobs. “Transmutation,” he says, catching Davenport’s solemn nod in his peripheral. “But that shouldn’t be possible. You can manipulate bonds in transmuted objects to fool it into thinking it’s something else, I already figured that out, but you can’t transmute the bonds themselves— ”

“— Unless it’s not the bonds being changed,” Lup says, bending down to meet his eyes. “It’s the person.”

“Is that something you can do?” Julia asks from where she sits, a safe six feet away from the bond engine. She’d never been one to fiddle with it, focused more with practical stuff like repairing the Starblaster when they still had it and making everyone weapons. Magnus had left her side at some point between Taako staring blankly at the engine to him being under the table, now next to Merle as they take over the stack of papers. 

“Not necessarily.” Taako lifts the monocle back to his eye, undertaking the fucking horrendous task of trying to figure out which bond shit the bed. Which is hard to do when there are literal thousands of them. “You can turn flesh into stone, ice, whatever, but that’s not something drastic enough to affect bonds because, at your core, you’re still you. Tweedle-dee over here is suggesting some fuckwad in our life is changing the part of them that makes them them.”

Lucretia removes her hand from the bond engine like she’d been shocked, wincing as she flaps her hand uselessly about. “You know,” says Magnus, “we _do_ sort of have contact with an actual goddess that knows like, everything.”

Everyone promptly stops what they’re doing to look at Magnus. He raises his brows. They all turn to Taako, under the table. Slowly, he holds a grease-covered hand to his face. “Hey, Istus? It’s me.” The sound of knitting needles clacking together, but no verbal response. “You don’t happen to know what the fuck is going on with the bond engine, do you?”

The clacking stops. Istus makes a sound in the back of her throat. Inquisitive, but not surprise. “That was me,” she admits, but her voice is distant, distracted. “It’s nothing any of you have to worry about. Recalculate it in five minutes, and then again in, oh, four days or so.”

“Lady Istus, if you’ll permit me to know the answer— whose bonds are they?” Lucretia asks, still wringing her hand and staring at the table, brows drawn up and lip twisted downward. She shares a brief look with Lup and Barry, then looks back at the bond engine. Istus’s knitting continues. When she speaks, she almost sounds like it pains her to do so.

“You know I can’t tell you that.”

That was the last time anyone would hear directly from Istus for a week.

More devout worshippers of Istus are aware that she weaves their fate into a tapestry, knitting needles intertwining thousands of millions of thread into the fabric of the universe and, knowing this, believe that one day out of every year, she takes a break. Some like to think that she begins to work on a new tapestry, one for each plane. Others believe that she simply relaxes, celebrates her work with the rest of the pantheon. Regardless, one day out of every year, Istus leaves the tapestry untouched, and the world’s fates become their own. Just for a day, just a fleeting speck in the thick of things. Luca and Redmond have it marked on the community calendar in the Davy Lamp, and Taako has it on good authority that they read shitty light novels together for an hour or two.

Today is not that day. 

So when Magnus goes into the bathroom only to return with a set of coordinates written in sharpie on his hand, brows furrowed and no explanation for how he got them, no one asks the questions they should. Instead, Taako pulls out his list and puzzles over it with Lup, and Lucretia inputs the coordinates into a GPS. “It’s in the mountains,” she says, gesturing over Merle. “Given the positioning, my best guess is that you’ll be going to Hindermount Fortress.”

Lup, Barry, and Davenport tense in unison, while Merle and Taako let their heads hit the nearest surface with a resonating thunk. Taako tilts his head just far enough to say, “You didn’t bother to save my stabby stick by any chance, Luce?” but otherwise remains as he was.

Lucretia looks at Taako. Without breaking eye contact, she backpedals to her umbrella stand and pulls on an otherwise inconspicuous umbrella handle, only— “you keep the fucking Krebstar in your umbrella stand?”

She holds it out to him. “We’re still not letting you call it that,” she says, in perfect unison with every other person in the room. “Merle, your Warhammer is with my vacuum, Incase you were wondering.”

“Neat,” Merle mumbles in a distracted sort of way that implies that he couldn’t give two shits about where his Warhammer is. Taako figures the most likely scenario is that he forgot that he owned one in the first place, and assumes this is some sort of failsafe he had set in place anywhere between ten years and a week ago. He gestures to the X-Treme Teen Bible. “Like bludgeoning folks with this puppy more.”

Davenport and Julia are huddled close together, counting under their breaths as they play the most aggressive game of Rock Paper Scissors Taako’s seen in his damn life. Magnus whispers something in Julia’s ear, costing her a round, but winning her the game if the whoops and cheers she lets out mean anything. There are shouts about who goes with who to get what and where to meet up. Taako’s only half listening, preoccupied with thinking about the best way to dip out of this mission because he might be the one that got them into this emissary deal but also fuuuuck this.

Half-listening changes quickly to not listening at all when Lup grabs onto his elbow and guides him into an alcove, where Barry waves absently but otherwise ignores them in favor of trying to get his socks back on. “This is like, really dangerous, you know that, right?” She whispers, brows furrowed and eyes open in a way they typically are, letting all her concern shine through. “Fuck, who am I kidding, of course you know. Point is, we can’t follow. I mean, we were going to offer but Dav and Lucretia just gave us these _looks_ so we can’t even if we wanted to and I just—“

Well shit damn fucknuts, uh. Listen, Taako isn’t _good_ with being a shoulder to cry on. Like, if you give him time he can come up with something but under pressure? Holy shit, you know?

So what he’s trying to say is that there’s blind faced horror on his face for the second it takes him to put his hand on Lup’s shoulder, meet her gaze, and say, “I’ll be fine. Worst comes to worst I can just use Magnus as a meat shield.” A logical person, which Taako sometimes is, would have instead decided to tell her that there’s never a guarantee that they’ll face danger, but the rest of him has alarms that are labeled ‘Istus is being especially cryptic and also what the _fuck_ is the seventh item supposed to be’ for now until whenever this bullshit blows over. But Lup laughs, more surprised than anything, and Taako’s shoulders slump. It’s cool, it’s fine, everything’s totally chill.

Fantasy Christ on a _Bicycle_ he needs some alcohol.

Julia and Magnus meet up with the rest of them at the train station a half-hour after they scattered to the winds, wearing more heavy armor than Taako would know what to do with. Angus is there because of course he is, and he’s blabbering to some police officer about how he _really_ needs to get past him and yes, he has a permit, and no he isn’t a little young to be a detective. 

Eight people walking by him and ruffling his hair with varying intensity probably doesn’t help his case, but Taako lingers long enough to tell the officer to bring Angus’s credentials up to Lieutenant Hurley if she’s so hellbent on blocking the world’s greatest detective from doing his job. He leaves fast enough that he doesn’t have to deal with the blinding smile Angus sends his way.

Four tickets to the Felicity Wilds. Three Emissaries of Fate trying to squash the nagging sensation that they’re being monitored closely, five family members that worry not for themselves but the three, for the two. 

Lup hugs Taako tight, and neither of them let go until the intercom sparks to life and announces that boarding has begun, and even then they stay glued at each other’s side, until Lucretia rests a hand on Taako’s shoulders and nods to the door, solemn in a way she wasn’t always like before… before everything. Before Davenport filled their heads with illusions of justice and grandeur. Before Taako poisoned dozens and Lup and Barry got sick. Before they were eight and they were just seven vagabonds that called themselves a family. 

The train ride is silent, without Lup by his side. The hillsides and mountains outside pass by in a lovely blur, wagons racing to keep up with the train as it streaks past. Merle is reading from a little pocketbook he pulled from the folds of his jacket, lips twisted in concentration as he struggles to read the small text. Julia and Magnus are sleeping with content, Julia leaning against the window and Magnus leaning against Julia.

Taako watches a flock of birds fly into the horizon. 

**⋆✧⋆**

_Feet sliding against the snow slick floors, breath coming out in thick clouds as Their head whips from side to side, desperately seeking another path in this endless chasm. They hold Their left hand close to Their abdomen, bones shattered to nothingness after an unfortunate clash with the monster that trails them and a wound that spurts blood out. Their heart sinks; there is no exit, no second path to take them up and out. only a puddle of water in a corner and icicles that grow long and sharp overhead. One of them snaps and shatters as the earth beneath begins to settle._

  
  


_They had hoped…_

  
  


_...it doesn’t matter what they had hoped._

**⋆✧⋆**

Taako lands in a wet puddle with a wince and a groan, his fur-lined coat trailing after him over the ledge. Julia glances back at him from where she stands at attention near the end of the alley, hood covering any of her more recognizable features. Magnus’s hoodie does the same, but Merle and Taako are no legends, so they didn’t bother. “You’ve had Disguise Self on all day?” Julia asks in a hissed whisper as Magnus signals an all clear, and they casually make their exit into the empty street. Taako had felt the spell fade the moment they made it through the fortress walls, the last of his magic to go since they neared Hindermount. He just didn’t think it would be _that_ noticeable to someone who didn’t know how the spell worked, so he hadn’t really bothered worrying about it. Actually, he didn’t worry about it at all, because this is his family, and if God was on his side they wouldn’t mention it. 

  
God was, supposedly, not on his side. 

“Uh, fucking of course I have?” A child runs after its mother, who scolds them firmly but not unkindly. Magnus follows after them without a backward glance at the others. 

Merle squints at them, adjusts his glasses, and says, “He’s had it on for weeks.” Fucking traitor. You know, Kravitz never called him out on the Disguise Self, so why the hell would Merle? “Probably longer.”

(There is, as always, a voice in the back of Taako’s head that sounds annoyingly like Lup, reminding him that Kravitz never had the option to _not_ see through Taako’s disguises, so he wouldn’t know better. This voice is ignored.)

Julia makes a concerned noise in the back of her throat, blinking and following close on Magnus’s heels as they merge into a historical tour, led by a man in shining armor that yells loud enough to be heard over the rain and winds. Taako tunes the guide out, for the most part. Whatever he has to say, Taako’s heard it all before. Instead, he keeps an eye out for a raven feathered cloak in the scattered groups of people, either guardsmen, tourists, citizens of the outside surrounding village or officials of Hindermount Fortress alike. “I don’t think the Raven Queen would risk sending him here,” Merle says from where he walks at Taako’s side, glancing at him from his peripheral. “We’re fine cut off from Istus, but Kravitz… He’s made from different stuff, I’d wager.”

They could discuss the finer intricacies of the matter, of how they think Kravitz lives through bonds in the same way that Barry and Lup are composed of all of their bonds bound and carefully controlled. They don’t. They warily eye the guards in their armor and swords, hold their weapons just a little bit closer to their chests, and pretend that they were born and raised as fighters for paranoia’s sake.

The inside of the fortress, once you get past the buildings erected by migrants from a war long past, a village made of bloodied history, is no more complex than Neverwinter’s Library of Arcane History; it’s old, with finely carved motifs of Panthers climbing up door frames and columns and stone floors that echo when walked on in five-inch heels. The tour guide gestures for the party to follow into a dining hall with fine golden tables and chandeliers. Julia nods her head towards the opposite hall, and the door hidden between two green curtains. Meant to be overlooked with a cursory glance, Taako first assumes that she’s leading them to the old servant’s quarters. It would make sense, in some roundabout way. Magnus used to tell them about how their rebellions were often only successful due to secret passages known only to descendants of servants and slaves; Julia must think that whatever they’re looking for is likewise difficult to pull off. 

But then, the smell of death is pungent. Hanging thick in the air despite the historians’ best attempts to keep it quarantined. Even with the wards, with magic torn from Taako’s lungs like breath, he knows that blood taints the bonds of the stone beneath his feet in the same way he knows that whatever Istus sent them here for is down, far below the surface. Julia holds out a hand for Magnus’s lockpicks. They look at it weirdly, as if there was something _off_ about how they looked, but nevertheless continue with getting the door opened. Taako and Merle keep an eye out for guards. They pause, once, when the sounds of metal shoes against the floor near. It’s a tense moment that they spend pressed up against the shadows and under curtains, dust thick in the air. Taako and Merle stare at Julia and Magnus across the room with wide, fearful eyes, and though they don’t have dark vision too, they nod, a small gesture that reassures them if nothing else.

The guard’s footsteps fade around a corner, and they all let out a collective sigh of relief. Julia resumes her work and, a few seconds later, a faint click echoes throughout the hall. “Go,” Taako hisses as she warily nudges the door open. “fucking _go_ , we’ll just kill anyone down here if they try and sound the alarm.” 

Magnus squints at him over his shoulder, but nudges Julia into the stairwell. “It is a _miracle_ that you haven’t been to prison yet.”

“And you have, so what does that say about you, homie? That you’re a good law obeying boy?” The wooden steps creak under Taako as they descend a rickety, winding stairwell. Julia grabs a torch off of the wall and sets to work lighting it, mumbling to herself about forgetting a flashlight of all things. “You’d’ve spent years in prison if those righteous friends of yours didn’t clear your name and you know it, Maggy. _I_ didn’t because I don’t get caught.”

“Well I— ”

“— Magnus, Taako, I love you both dearly as my family, but would you _please_ for the love of _Pan_ shut the fuck up,” Merle says, gesturing towards Julia, currently at the bottom of the stairwell and staring at them expectantly. “What were you saying, kid?”

“There are two paths we can take. Option number one,” she gestures to a dark, shadowy hall that looks well worn, with ancient blood staining the floors, a decorative bloodied handprint streaking along the wall here or there. “Is we see whether or not Istus was sending us after a dead acolyte. Option number two is the safer option.” She holds the torch out for Magnus’s sake, revealing a dusty, unused hall that winds off and away, lacking the bloodstains of the first hall. “What’ll it be, boys?”

Merle and Magnus turn to Taako like they’re expecting him to automatically pick the safer option. Normally, Taako would, but right now, at this moment, he’s staring blankly down the bloodied hall with a furrow between his brows and a hand on his glaive. He knows something waits, at the end of their journey, but he can’t tell _what_ beyond an itch at the nape of his neck. He blinks, shakes the suspension away, and scowls at his companions. “The hell are you dumbasses looking at me for? Since when did _I_ become the leader of this bullshit escapade?”

“Since you’ve started getting that ominous look in your eyes like you’re the Chosen One prophesized for the ages, I'm guessing,” Julia unhelpfully inputs. This earns her a glare, to which she shrugs. “You want us to pick, here’s my thinking: The nice, comfortable-looking passageway is an exit, either back to the surface or off the mountain. The designers of this part of the keep wouldn’t want prisoners to get a quick exit, so I’m betting my money on it putting us right back into the main hall. If we’re looking for anything, even a corpse to lug out of here, it’d be through the cryptic as all hell murder dungeon.”

“Oh, good,” Taako registers himself faintly managing. “I always wanted to die in Hindermount Fortress. Told Lup and Auntie that no matter when I’m going to kick it, it’ll be here, with all the bones of these poor fuckers as company. _So_ glad to see I can keep my promise.”

Merle pats Taako’s thigh sympathetically as they stare forlornly down the bloody hall. “Don’t be so dramatic, bud.” With a noticeable strain, “I’m sure it’ll turn out fine.”

A door slams, somewhere down the hall, sending out another gust of cold air that has them shivering. Taako and Merle glance at each other, then to Magnus and Julia’s retreating backs, and quickly follow after them. “We’re avoiding the torture rooms, right? Please tell me we’re avoiding the torture rooms, Jules.” Magnus is saying, glancing nervously at a particularly heavy trail of blood that leads to a nearby closed door.

“We’re avoiding the torture rooms.”

“Thank god.” 

Julia makes a sharp left, wrenches open a door and makes an interested sound. “But we _can_ see where this trail of blood leads. Looks like another stairwell, carved out of the mountain.”

“Fucking great, why don’t we sound the alarm while we’re at it!” Taako shouts after her as she vanishes through the door, leaving him to follow. 

If you asked Lup about it, she would tell you that being Istus’s emissary has made Taako...reckless. Not in a way that most people would notice, but if you knew him before, during the ten years they spent running all around faerun, then you’d be able to see it, too. He’s more flippant with his spellcasting not because he knows he’s good but because he knows it’ll work, more uncaring about safety precautions. He goes chasing after raven feathered cloaks because he knows that fate wouldn’t let him meet his demise so long as he stayed close to death itself, brings himself home battered and bruised and uncaring. It’s not that he isn’t efficient still, he couldn’t bear to be anything less, but he’s just… reliant on a safety net that he’s never sure is there or not.

But no one asks Lup about it, except for Barry, both of them worried about the same thing.

So they walk through the bloodied halls and a door with a broken lock, making vague noises of surprise when the wall scones flare to life before them. None of them even look surprised when a security guard looks at them, opens their mouth to shout and sound an alarm, only to be cut off by Taako’s glaive, thrown expertly through the guard’s jugular. There's a collective sigh of relief when they fall to the floor, dead after a few moments of pained gurgling.

Through the halls with skeletons scattered about, clerics and wizards with cloaks torn as if some beast had slashed right though them, Taako feels a cold creeping up his neck that is separate from the chill of ice and snow. Not all of them are grouped together, some leaning in a far corner as if trying to distance themselves from the rest of the skeletons. But there are some dead, holding a skull in their lap and a bone hand pressed over a chest wound, some groups of clerics under the same god huddled together in communal prayer. 

Unlike the rest of the halls, there are no doors, no adjacent rooms that remain locked and overlooked. Just endless halls, twisting and turning. Julia leads them down a left hall, muttering to herself about the right being a dead end just as Taako steps on someone’s arcane focus and snaps it in half. Julia, Magnus, and Merle’s voices fade down the hall as Taako lifts his leather boot off of the talisman, expecting some shattered wand or bracelet.

Instead, he sees the symbol of the Raven Queen, split down the center of a rusted iron medallion, just barely strung around the wrist of a detached skeletal hand, the joints outstretched to point down the right hall.

The wall scones flare to life as Taako slowly, tentatively makes his way down the dead end, glaive in hand. There are fewer bodies, here, but those that couldn’t live long enough to try and find a better resting place are laying on the floor, staring at the ceiling, or curled in on themselves with telltale signs of starvation in their posture. 

One of the skeletons moves in the shadows, a cloaked figure that moves swiftly at Taako’s approach, fast enough that he only sees the glint of steel. Knowing this, compartmentalizing it, he knows he has a split second to react, to bring his glaive up and bring it down—

**⋆✧⋆**

— The lights flare to life as he moves, having gone long-dormant the longer he stood there, staring down at corpses. He moves quick on his feet, shoes sliding against iced floors and cloak billowing around him. He’ll kill this guard and move on, get out of this forsaken gallows and go back to modern society, only, the guard isn’t wearing armor and his skin—

**⋆✧⋆**

— his eyes. That’s what stops Taako, well and truly. It’s his eyes. Terrifying and unfamiliar, but it’s still _him_ , despite what Hindermount had forced from him. They stand there, blades at each other's throat, breathing labored, as Taako puzzles over his eyes of all fucking things. “You,” he says, then stops. Licks his lips, chapped from so much time spent in the cold. “Why would she send you here?”

There’s a wealth of emotion in Taako’s voice as he says this, he knows, but he can’t bring himself to care enough to lie about _this_ of all things. What right does she have, sending him here of any place on Faerun, of all the planes? What could be so fucking important that she’d risk sending him to Hindermount?

Kravitz’s dead, foggy brown eyes fill up with tears but go no further. He lowers his dagger; Taako keeps his glaive up. “I don’t.” He blinks away the tears, adjusts his glasses. “I don’t know.”

“Bullshit you don’t. Give me the truth, darling.” Taako tightens his grip on his glaive to keep his hands from trembling, but he can’t stop the wavering of his voice, the wobbling of his upper lip. Kravitz either doesn’t notice or doesn’t say anything as he raises his hands slowly, watching Taako as Taako watches him, and presses them on either side of his face. 

“I don’t know. And neither do you.”

This isn't something Kravitz should know. And he doesn’t, not really. But he knows Taako. Or, well, he knows how to read Taako as well as anyone else in his tight-knit family. And there’s something like comfort in his face, in those dead, dead eyes, that finally allows Taako to drop his glaive to the floor and wind his arms around Kravitz’s middle, bury his head in the feathered collar of his cloak. “Taako!” He hears Julia call out, somewhere down the hall. Belatedly, he realizes he probably should have told them where he was going before leaving the group. 

“We’re fine,” Kravitz says into the top of Taako’s head. They cling to each other desperately, or. Well. Taako clings desperately, and he’s not a lesser man for admitting that. “We shouldn’t be here, but we are, so we’re getting out together. How does that sound?”

“Sounds like the best thing anyone’s told me all day.” Breaking apart, “I’m fine! Just ran into someone!”

“Not exactly reassuring to hear that! Who’d you kill?”

“You’ve been killing people?”

“Only one. The day’s still young, though. Could change.”

Merle is the first to see them, all the way across his hall and, because they’re all fucking idiots that wouldn’t know what ‘sneaking’ was if Lucretia put the definition on the back of their hands, he shouts, “Holy shit, is that Kravitz?”

Kravitz, because he isn’t a fucking idiot, waves awkwardly and lets Taako manhandle him in their general direction. “We’re in the same boat, it seems,” he explains to the rest of the party, squinting at something down the left hall. “Hello, Julia, lovely to see you again.”

Julia snorts, shaking her head as she continues leading them down the hall. “Don’t think you can talk your way out of telling me how you’re still standing in this place.” She throws a smile over her shoulder, bright in a way that only Julia can be. In moments like that, Taako well and truly understands why Magnus would do anything for her. “But I’m glad to see you too.”

Taako tunes out his explanation, for the most part. It isn’t something that he wants to know, necessarily, and constant reminders that there’s always a possibility of Kravitz just being able to drop dead at any given moment due to a strong enough ward is never fun. So instead he continues to glare at skeletons and stew in his progressively growing anger at Hindermount Fortress. He very adamantly does not think about The List.

“I think this hall leads into a cave,” he says, after a minute of studying these skeletons and their clothes. Kravitz and Magnus seem to be the only ones intrigued by this, turning their heads slightly in his direction in acknowledgment. “There’s dirt on the hems of their robes, mud stains from where they’ve fallen. Too many of them have it, if it was just a few then fine, they captured an escape party in the surrounding woods in the rain, but…” Taako gestures vaguely to the skeletons lining the floors and walls; all covered in dirt. 

“Why wouldn’t they stay in the caves, find an exit?” Magnus nudges a skeleton’s mud-covered boot with a toe. “All systems have one.”

Beneath their feet, the stone fades into dirt that crunches under their feet, the air chilling around them the further they walk. Icicles grow out from the ceiling, still expertly crafted by the poor idiots that got stuck building Hindermount with the same panther motifs. Kravitz’s eyes are shadowed, no weight lifted off of his shoulders with the confirmation of Taako’s suspicions. “If there was an exit, they would have blocked it off, sealed anyone, any _thing_ inside.” A corpse is missing a leg, in the further parts of the cave. From the tears in the pants hanging loosely off of its bones and the awkward way it sprawled out, Taako’s not putting bets on this dude having gone in here without it. With his heart in his throat, he adjusts his grip on his glaive. “They were running, all of them.”

The ground trembles beneath their feet. A pebble falls onto the ground next to Magnus’s foot with a dull thud. Merle’s head is tilted up to the top of the cave, brows furrowed.

The ground trembles again, enough to leave Julia’s footing unsteady. 

Something roars, horrifyingly human-like, deep in the cave system. Taako looks to Magnus, and Magnus looks to Julia. “Nightwalker,” they say, scrambling back just in time for Merle to come rushing over. He’s eyeing a part of the ceiling with trepidation, hands clutching his bible.

“Good news,” Merle says, “I think the cave’ll fall in.”

“Bad news?” Kravitz prompts.

“The Nightwalker will get here first.” Julia’s gaze is steeled as she hefts her Warhammer and squares her shoulders, all determination and fire. “I can buy you enough time to get out of here, but that’s it.”

Somewhere, Istus is laughing. No one thinks that this joke of hers is particularly funny, but she laughs nonetheless.

“Jules— ”

“— Magnus, don’t look at her like she kicked a puppy.” Taako warily eyes an icicle that sways overhead, trembling with the earth. “No one’s buying anyone enough time. We’re all going to run, and we’re going to run fast as fucking hell. Got it?”  
  


“And leave the rest of the innocents living outside Hindermount to deal with a fucking Nightwalker? Are you on crack, Taako? No, one of us has to stay and kill this thing once and for all. I’m volunteering.”

“No, shut the fuck up, we’re all leaving and we’re getting out safely. Fuck Hindermount for all I care! They got what was coming the moment they started killing everyone with magic!”

“Taako, _listen_ to yourself. Do you seriously want to leave all of those families to just— ”

The ground was trembling, before. Little tremors that unsettled you and nothing more. Taako didn’t think they’d get any worse, that they’d just fade out after a while after they ditch the Nightwalker. 

The ground trembled before, but now? Now it _broke_. Stones swaying under their feet violently, Taako sees his world go sideways, and he lets out a yell not because he’s losing his balance but because his glaive is sailing through the air, out of his reach and crashing far, far away from his grasp. As the ground begins to settle and everyone rights themselves, a siren sounds. Far away, distant, a voice warns the citizens and touring parties of Hindermount Fortress that a dragon is nearing, and to follow the evacuation procedures posted on the doors. he turns his head to see that the paladin from before has fallen, their sword thrust in the center of them all. He meets Kravitz’s gaze. Slowly, they turn to Julia.

~~_7\. I do what must be done, not what you believe is right._ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

The longsword is between them, close enough that the hilt could be touched. Cold sweat rolls down Kravitz’s forehead as he removes a hand from where it had flown, pressing the frame of his glasses against his skin. He meets Taako’s gaze from across the sword, and follows him to Julia, so willing to sacrifice herself. Panic, known to him as a second friend. They were not meant to be here, not now, not ever. Hindermount was supposed to be a bad dream, a place children with magic were told about when they were turning dangerous, the _consequences of your gifts_. But Julia… She would walk freely in Hindermount. She would be paraded for being brave and selfless, even if this selflessness went towards magic users. Nevertheless, she was not meant to be here. Her eyes are wide, fearful, but no less determined. Looking first at Magnus, second to the sword.

~~**_7\. Go to Hindermount Fortress, my child. There, far, far below in the crypt of my children lost needlessly, you will be needed._ ** ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

Julia lost her Warhammer in the confusion. It’s abandoned, wedged in the stone far behind them alongside Taako’s glaive. She is defenseless, without a weapon, and the Nightwalker is approaching fast. Taako watches her scramble for it, and in turn rushes to follow, to keep her from stubbornly insisting to die a hero’s selfish, selfish death. It makes him selfish, in turn, to want her to live, to sacrifice the many for the one, but she is his family.

She is part of all he has left.

So they race one another to the sword, a fight for selfishness and selflessness, and they both reach out and--

— and the sword is gone, lifted swiftly off of the stone floor. Julia collapses with a defeated sigh, but Taako remains frozen, still stretched out for the sword and something cold manifesting against his diaphragm. He can’t tell if it’s anger, familiar like an old friend, or if it’s terror in a way that he’s never experienced before because he has always feared for himself and his family and only just for his family, not.

Not for Kravitz.

He stands there, brandishing the sword with a carefully blank expression, raven feathered cloak still pulled tight around him, before he nods to Magnus. There’s an understanding that passes between them, some unspoken language of people who are always certain that they are doing the right thing. It’s not something Taako is fluent in, so he yells out for Kravitz, asking him what he’s doing, to come back, to flee with them. He doesn’t get a smile, reassuring as he tells him that he’ll be catching right up, no brief eye contact that says all that doesn’t pass his lips. 

Kravitz doesn’t say anything at all, doesn’t look in his direction.

“Get out of here,” he says, and his voice is monotone like he’s just listing the chores of the day. “Evacuate with the others, help anyone that you can.”

“We’re not going to fucking _leave_ you, the fuck! No, Magnus, let go of me, we’re all leaving or none of us leave!” 

He turns, hood pulled up and back facing Taako, and steps into the center of the cave. His shoulders are set, body relaxed into the same battle stance that Magnus had spent years trying to teach Taako and Barry. 

Somehow, seeing Kravitz’s back turned to him hurts more than all of the other times he’s shoved Taako out of harm's way and faced danger on his own. “You said we were leaving together, you asshole! You fucking promised!” Magnus struggles to lift Taako from where he’s rooted against the floor. It’s not like he makes it any easier, because he’s not fucking leaving. So he thrashes and jabs his elbows into guts and kicks his pseudo brother in the dick, even going as far to hit his eye hard enough that he knows it’ll turn black in a few hours, but he doesn’t fucking care. You don’t just leave someone on Hindermount _alone_.

It’s betrayal he feels, Taako knows, as Magnus struggles to drag him down the hall as the ground shakes again. He knows he’s screaming nonsense by this point, just empty noise in hopes that it would get through to Kravitz enough that he’d see some fucking sense, but he can’t stop, not with this anger and fear and the knowledge that if anyone, Taako should be the one wielding that stupid fucking sword, not because he wants to be a hero, but because he is the least of them all. Because he has earned the fate of the skeletons of Hindermount Fortress.

You’d think that Taako would be used to this, though. Being handed off to Magnus while Kravitz fights a rock monster in Old Miller Labs, Kravitz standing with this horrible look on his face and still insisting Taako go through the rift first, Kravitz stretching out to infinity, always letting Taako leave while he stays behind. You’d think that maybe after this happens enough that he’ll probably get nightmares about Kravitz pushing Taako out of safety, he’d be used to the feeling that seizes his entire body. But he wasn’t. He isn’t. Instead, he lives knowing that he loves a man too good for him and knowing that this thing he feels is love only makes it worse, only further tears the hole in the fabric that makes Taako _Taako_.

  
So Taako lets this hole grow until it’s all that he is, voice going raw as rocks fall from the top of the cave, sealing away Kravitz as he takes one final, shuddering breath.

**✧**

It’s chaos back on the surface. The security guards are streaking past the crowd, swords and projectiles ablaze, yelling out to each other as the dragon circles in the sky. Houses surrounding the fortress itself are ablaze, crackling and crumbling under the flames. Officials trip over citizens and keep running for the evac site, heedless of the damage they cause in their wake so long as they make it out. 

Taako breathes in the smoke like a breath of fresh air, head turned skywards as the evacuees race around him, wary of the glaive in his hand. Magnus and Julia had bolted the minute they saw the village was collapsing; no doubt, they’re rushing through burning houses saving women and children like they were firefighters paid to do this and not a husband and wife with crippling urges to do good.

That leaves Merle and Taako, staring up at the dragon with the apathy it has earned. “I’m going to tear down those wards,” he announces, and finds no emotion in his voice, cracking and ragged from all of the yelling and screaming. “And I’m going to bring this fucking place down with it.”

Merle pats Taako’s hip, still staring at the dragon. “How ‘bout we kill this thing first, then you can tear down Hindermount brick by brick to help your boy out. That sound good to you, bud?” The end of a bow appears in Taako’s periphery and jiggles a bit. “Look, you can even use this bow I stole off of the corpse in the alley behind us!”

The distaste must show in his face because Merle is sighing and sullenly knocking an arrow. “Alright, guess I’ll just kill the dragon all on my own— ”

Taako takes the bow and in one swift, fluid motion fires directly into the dragon’s throat. “You _know_ I hate bows,” he grumbles, giving chase through the village as the dragon roars and spits out fire on a field of wheat. “My entire fucking family used bows! All of them! Lup and I went, ‘hey, guys, shouldn’t we mix things up?’ and you know what they said? No! They said no! Those old fucking farts were fucking obsessed with being the perfect shot! Didn’t even figure out that salt is essential in cooking, in the four hundred years they’ve been doing fuck all on Faerun!”

Magnus pops his head out of a burning building, brows furrowed. “Taako’s talking about his birth family?” He asks, before promptly bursting through the already weak wall, dog in hand. He hands it off to a fleeing family. “He only does that when he’s stressed and— oh, wait, yeah, I’d be stressed too.”

“They didn’t even know what rosemary was!” With Magnus and Merle hot on his tail, Taako goes racing into the burning field of wheat. Julia bursts out of another row next to him, looking breathless. “Even Davenport knows what rosemary is, and he thinks vanilla extract straight out of the bottle is the coolest shit! Like, what the fuck!”  
  


“Is he going to snap?” Julia calls out over her shoulder as Taako takes a running leap for the dragon, letting out a war cry to rival any background actor in Fantasy 300 trying to get some screen time.

“Nah, he’s fine.” Merle nudges a dead security guard with his foot before shrugging and prying a hand ax from their tight grip. “Happens from time to time.”

Taako is, meanwhile, planting his foot in one dragon eye and ramming his glaive in the other, still yelling to anyone in a ten-mile radius about his family and their shitty cooking slash obsession with ‘LARPing Fantasy Lord of the Rings or some shit’, as he calls it. The dragon knocks him off easily, and Taako _thinks_ he broke something, but he’s still pretty pissed, and that’s putting it lightly. “Magnus! Stop gawking and beat the hell out of that stupid lizard! You _know_ I don’t have any upper body strength!” Ignoring the pulsing pain that courses up his wrist, Taako throws himself out of the way of another gust of flames. Behind him, Julia gathers Merle up into her arms and in one fluid motion chucks him directly at the dragon’s face. 

The laugh that escapes past Taako’s lips is hysterical. Magnus hauls him to his feet, watching with some absurd wonder as Merle’s entire body sails through the air. There are tears in their eyes, from Taako’s hysteria and the smoke respectively.

The dragon didn’t stand a chance.

Between Julia and Magnus, they probably could have taken down the poor fucking thing in Aunder half an hour, so throwing Merle in the mix was a walk in the park, and letting Taako actually participate in a battle for once in his life was overkill. In the end, though, they’re not the ones that take out the dragon, not really. In a feeble attempt to escape the dragon had taken to the air, roaring and spitting fire all the way, gunning straight for Hindermount Fortress. Or, presumably, for the mountain behind it, so the dragon could find suitable cover. Taako thought, well, that’s that. Had a good run beating the shit out of a dragon, but the bastard got away, oh well, guess I’ll go bust my boy out of that cave and go home.

Taako is, of course, lying to himself. He knows that, even as the thought crosses his mind, Julia is reaching out for the bow he’d discarded some few minutes ago, aiming the sack of… something Magnus lugs high into the sky. 

Surprisingly enough it was Davenport, not Magnus, that explained to the seven (well, six, at the time, but there’s no doubt in Taako’s mind he didn’t have a sit down with Julia, too) what the flares meant. Red was an SOS, a denied request, a ‘hold’, dependent on the situation. Orange was a warning for travelers or backup. A white flare in the midst of battle was a ceasefire.

A green flare, now sailing into the atmosphere, was permission to fire at will. 

“We should probably start running,” Magnus says, as they impassively watch the guards from Hindermount fire a trebuchet. It hits the dragon, dead on the chest. “Just a tip.”

None of them move.

The dragon crashes into the mountain behind Hindermount.

An avalanche starts to fall not a second after.

**⋆✧⋆**

  
  


Kravitz hunches over against a wall to catch his breath, sword held loosely in his left hand, which burns with the searing pain of a broken bone. The Nightwalker collapses to the floor, grunting and wheezing. Blood like smoke pours out from the wounds littering its skin, but it doesn’t worry about those, eyes unblinking as they watch Kravitz, who slumps down against the wall of the cave, right hand pressed over a spot where its claws had dug through his skin. His breath comes out in thick clouds here, the cold pressing in on him from all sides. It’s comforting in a way that music is, reminding him of the Astral plane. Right now, the chill is nothing more than that. 

The Nightcrawler turns from Kravitz, something like understanding in the way it releases a shaking, ragged breath. It makes a bird with its hands. Inclines its head at Kravitz’s returning nod. Then, stretching out its long arm, it takes the sword Kravitz offers hilt-first and drives it through its chest in one motion, just as the cave rattles and distant snow crumbles and coats the surface above.

Kravitz presses the back of his head against the freezing cave wall, arms around his chest. Staring blankly at the ice growing along the stone, he thinks of nothing. He thinks of everything. More importantly, he thinks about the after, whatever ‘after’ qualifies as. Deep down he knows that Taako will come in search of him, and his family will come with, for their selfish reasons.

He knows that Taako will come and search for him.

So he closes his eyes in the furthest cave vein he could find during his battle and waits to be found.

**⋆✧⋆**

The wailing of children had died out hours ago. A security guard murmurs the time to the woman leaning against her heavily, and Taako barely catches it. Three twenty-six A.M. The air is stuffy, suffocating him in heat and humidity from the hundreds of bodies packed in the evac site, a man-made thing only meant to accompany a hundred at most. 

Taako had let two civilians and a security guard die in the avalanche just so his family would be able to make it in before they cut everyone off. This doesn’t haunt him, not now, not with his mind wandering, eyes unblinking as they stare across the fire at a woman, alone and sobbing into the scarf that she knits to busy her mind. No one approaches him, thinking he’s finally slipped into a deep meditation, save for Merle, who nudges his shoulder until Taako blinks. “Here.” A hunk of stale bread pulled from the depths of Magnus’s bag. “You need to eat something.”

He stares at the bread and doesn’t take it. “Have we gotten service yet?”

A sigh, quiet, but loud enough that Taako knows that Merle wants him to know how unhappy he is with the refusal of bread. Scowling, he takes it. “No service. And we’re still gonna keep your stone until it’s safe for you to go out,” says Merle, “One of the tourists here works in this sorta climate. Says it’ll settle by sunrise.”

At six-thirty last night, Julia had taken Taako’s stone from his hands after hours of him furiously trying to call Kravitz, all of them going straight to voicemail, or just cutting out altogether. When he’d nearly stabbed a nearby teenager in his frustration, his stone had been forced out of his hands, his glaive confiscated by Magnus. They tried to get him to rest, but he was pacing a groove into the ground by that point, so they gave up trying to reason with him. 

He knows that they’re all biding their time until the service comes back. They’ll all look at each other when it happens, and then one of them’s going to call Lup to get her to reason with Taako to rest.

Lup won’t reason with Taako when he tells her _why_ he wants to get out there. She’ll come over to Hindermount herself and dig through the snow with him, and she’ll leave the fortress a smoldering pile of ashes when they’re done. Then they’ll set the ashes on fire.

An elven child tugs on the end of his coat, staring at him with open awe. “You fought the dragon,” she prompts. Taako raises a brow at her, moving his hands in the universal ‘get on with it’ gesture. “I wanna fight dragons when I’m older, like you!”

Huh.

So, uh, here’s the thing.

Back in the day?

Usually, Magnus and Julia got that sorta thing. They _do_ look more approachable, after all. Also, Taako kinda sort of almost killed someone like, four hours into being here, so who the _fuck_ lets their kid just casually approach him like it’s no biggie? Still reeling, Taako smiles and says, “oh, do you? Tell your friends to join the business, too, we’ll unionize, make the government give us dental and retirement.” Squinting at the kid, “well, only if you’re not a ranger, that is. Rangers are so dreadfully boring, don’t you think, darling??”

The kid nods vigorously, sending curls flying around. Her smile is toothy, missing a left canine. “I wanna learn magic,” she says in a stage-whisper. “Do you know magic?”

“If I did, I can't show you _here_ ,” he says. “If you want the best education in magic, go to Neverwinter College of the Arcane, kid. I’m not teaching material.”

With that, the kid wanders off, bouncing and skipping back to her father. 

“You know,” Merle says conversationally, “you’re pretty good with kid— ”

“— Fuck off, old man.”

“Just saying. Sheesh.”

Taako scoffs and returns to blankly staring at the crying woman. Her hands tremble as she starts another row, but she gives a wavering smile to the teenager with an infant in her arms and quietly begins to explain what she’s doing. The elf child sits on her father’s lap and plays with a stuffed bear, making little noises here and there that has her dad smiling through the dead look in his eyes. Heartbreak shines in the eyes of these two adults so clearly that Taako pauses, just for a second, before he returns to thinking of nothing but how to find Kravitz.

He isn’t stupid, though.

He knows that the only reason everyone else ignores him, aside from the aforementioned attempted murder, is because he fits in perfectly here.

To them, Taako is a poor fool who lost someone, just like everyone else.

But he hasn’t.

He won’t.

**⋆✧⋆**

Eventually, Kravitz stops bleeding, but the blood had already soaked through his layers of clothing. It had warmed him, briefly, but now it is cold, doing nothing to help the violent shivers that wrack through his body, heart pounding painfully against the sides of his skull. The tips of his fingers are numb. He can’t even feel the pain of his broken arm anymore. For that, he is blissful, thankful to the gods able to watch over him even now.

**⋆✧⋆**

The guards let Taako out at six in the morning, with nothing more than a rationed wool coat and a flashlight. “Are you sure you want to do this, kid?” Asks the woman from earlier from where she sits, broken arm in a sling. “You’ll be risking yourself out there, and you don’t even know if this man of yours is out there still.”

“He is,” Taako says, his voice far away as he stares at the flurries outside. Hindermount is barely visible underneath the snow, and though the sun is low in the air, clouds obscure any light. “We’re… hard to kill. Doesn’t like to stick.”

With that, he sets out without a backward glance to see who decided to follow.

**⋆✧⋆**

He sees the white raven when he finally tears his eyes away from the water dripping from the top of the cave. Kravitz opens his mouth to speak, winces at the way his lips crack and his entire face goes numb with the motion and closes it. Exhaling deep through his nose, he finds solace in knowing his accelerated heart rate doesn’t slow with the raven’s presence, though the confusion doesn’t fade.

Closing his eyes, he struggles to even remember where he was in the cave, how he got here, let alone how the white raven got past the wards.

The room spins when he opens them, or at least his mind registers it to be spinning. His heart rate slows the longer he looks at the white raven, but it doesn’t make him panic, as it did before, like some part of him, has awoken and now knows that it was always here to help.

His fingers stop twitching a melody at his sides.

He doesn’t even notice.

**⋆✧⋆**

“Please…” begs an old man, his body half-buried under a rock. His lips are blue, eyes unfocused. Merle looks up at Taako, shaking his nodding his head sadly before he continues, back turned to them. “...I won’t make it, I know, so just... please. Don't make me suffer any longer than I have to."

“C’mon, Taako, Jules and I can take him back to the others, they’ll be able to get him warmed up and— ”

His glaive digs into the man’s skull like a knife through butter. “Let's go.” 

Night has started to fall, from the signs of it. They have to find shelter, or the back entrance to the cave before the temperatures drop any further. Blinking at Magnus and Julia’s twin looks of horror, he gestures plainly to Merle. He was the cleric of the group, after all. Taako's just the euthanasia.

  
  
They trudge on until Merle finds them a dry enough spot to set up a shelter for the night. He sets to work gathering kindling for a fire, and with a pat to Taako’s hip and a shaky smile, asks him if he wants to look around the area for the cave.

Four hours later he returns with a scrape going up along his forearm and a carefully blank look and not much else.

**⋆✧⋆**

Kravitz kicks his shoes across the cave and returns to staring at the white raven. He’s given up on trying to talk to it, once he realized it wasn’t in the cards, but that hasn’t stopped him from thinking real hard at it. As of current, he’s thinking through what he should make his grandfather for dinner when he gets home. He’s been complaining about the cold on his joints, so something warm, like a soup. The bird inclines its head. Right, so a soup. Beef stew? 

The bird tilts its head in another direction. Like it’s confused.

The white raven, of course, cannot speak. So it isn’t able to convey to Kravitz that his grandfather died fourteen years ago, from his progressive disease that was labeled a plague, and his grandmother soon followed with a broken heart.

Blinking, Kravitz scowls at the bird. Something… tired settles into place in Kravitz’s core. He figures he’ll go to bed early when he gets back to Phandalin and whips up dinner, then.

If the bird could speak, which it does not, it would tell Kravitz that he is tired, resigned with waiting in this cave for however long it took. It would tell Kravitz that, so long as he remained in this cave, so would the raven.

There’s a pain sprouting up Kravitz’s arms that spreads throughout his entire body.

**⋆✧⋆**

They find the cave at noon on the third day after the avalanche. It’s secured shut by a pile of small rocks and dirt tightly packed together, so obviously a cave entrance that it amazes Taako how absolutely fucking stupid all of those corpses under Hindermount must have been in life, to completely miss it. “Move,” he says, brushing past Julia and scrambling to the rocks, digging his hands into the packed earth with both hands. He trembles the entire time, eyes crazed and shoulders wound up with tension. A chant of _finally, finally finally_ repeats in his head, a mantra of hope and desperation.

~~_7\. My truths are the same as yours, no matter how you may try and twist it._ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

Kravitz sees his breathing start to slow out to an unnatural rate (well, as unnatural as Kravitz can get, though he can’t fathom why this feels like a normal thought to him) more than he feels it. His eyes are drooping, the white raven nothing more than a blur of color as thick lashes cover his vision. Now trying to piece together where Taako was because if he was sent after an item Taako was sure to follow, and something just doesn't feel right about this, where he is and what he's doing, sitting here against a wall. His entire body feels hot, like he’s on fire, burning and burning and _burning_ in the cold.

**~~_7\. I cannot tell you what you seek, for I love you most of my children._ ~~ **

**⋆✧⋆**

The inside of the cave is eerily silent as Taako walks through, boots crunching in snow and ice that fell through the cracks and crevices far above. The cold is merciless, here, and Taako draws his arms around himself as they pass the den of the Nightcrawler, blessedly empty aside from mangled and dismembered corpses, none of them recent by either a day or a hundred years. “Kravitz?” He calls out, voice weak with the cold. His hands throb with a familiar, dull pain.

“Kravitz!” Shouts Magnus, his voice booming down another vein. They split up, like that, each with their flashlights going down the halls. Merle stayed at the mouth of the cave, citing a ‘feeling’ that kept him there.

~~_7\. so you must unbury the skeletons in your closet, and dig until your fingers bleed._ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

Kravitz closes his eyes, feels the exhaustion overcome his body. There’s a purpose in him that wasn’t there before, as he settles himself for what he hopes to be a few hours of unrestful sleep. The white raven lets out a noise that echoes, the crow of a dying bird.

As sleep takes him over, delirious and out of his mind, Kravitz feels pity for the white raven, a sorrow that spreads from his heart to the tips of his fingertips.

He feels pity for the white raven, for they were never meant to survive in the wild.

**~~7. _But know that when the time comes, you will know it with your entire being._~~ **

**⋆✧⋆**

Taako sees the sword first, the footprints in the dirt and smiles, wide and toothy. A sign of life, a sign of _something. “_ Guys! I found— ”

And then he _sees_.

_~~7\. It will hurt you, to know this truth, but it was what was necessary for your fate, for you to live your true self.~~ _

**✧**

Flesh hangs off of him in bits and pieces and oh _God_ he lost his fingers—

**✧**

—tears sting at his eyes, vomit and bile rising up in his throat—

**✧**

—he needs to get _out —_

**✧**

—He needs—

**✧**

— “Taako?” _—_

**✧**

—He—

**✧**

He can’t.

**✧**

Kravitz went to sleep, at one fifty-six in the afternoon on the second day after the avalanche fell.

  
  


His heart stopped beating for…

  
  
  
  


  
  
  


...His heart stopped beating.

  
  


~~_**7\. Never forget how much I love you.** _ ~~

**⋆✧⋆**

  
  


The sun warms Taako’s face, but he doesn’t remember getting back out of the cave, can’t think beyond the image of Kravitz’s corpse, decaying and cold. The smell of death was thick in the air, but he hadn’t thought about why, dismissing it as skeletons. “Taako?” Comes a voice, a repetition, and he lifts his head from the ground to see Merle, standing outside the cave.

Taako takes two slow, sluggish steps towards Merle before he falls to his knees and lets his silent tears become heard. arms wrapped around his head, the pressure to ground him but he can’t reach the floor anymore. “You’re here, kiddo, I’ve got you. It’s alright. It’s alright.” Rough, calloused hands meant for handling gardening tools run through his hair, and Taako knows that his tears soak through Merle’s shirt, but he doesn’t _care_. He lets himself be held as sobs wrack through his entire body, a yell for the gods torn from his throat, righteous and deserved sent to the heavens. “I’ve got you.”

“He was— We were— I— ” Taako manages, before dissolving into messier tears and clinging to the back of Merle’s coat like the world depends on it. He closes his eyes, tight. The ache in his heart spreads, painfully, to his collarbones and he can’t _breathe_ , can’t do anything other than keep on hyperventilating and babble like a toddler.

It’s a little like dying, Taako thinks.

Logically, he always knew that Kravitz would die, that there was an end in sight. But Taako is, like most people, selfish, and lied to himself for weeks, stubbornly insistent that this was something that would last.

So here’s the truth:

Taako has convinced himself that the moment Kravitz died, that was it, their relationship was over. This is nothing new. He had this logic, this train of thought, that was dependent on the fact that his sister and brother-in-law were liches, regardless of the _how_ and the _why_ of their roundabout immortality. Because how could a reaper, not an emissary, those were two entirely different things, according to the book Taako read from the LAH, be able to love someone who helped commit a crime against the Raven Queen, committed these crimes _himself_? Nevermind that Taako felt a love for Kravitz that burned like a wildfire in the chasm of his chest, large enough that he has learned to fear it, learned to associate this with the gut-wrenching heartbreak that will come when Kravitz arrives for the bounty of Lup and Barry Bluejeans. Nevermind that Taako decided he would ignore this like he ignores anything else.

So it’s a little like dying. Just a bit.

“Come on,” Merle says, reassuring, but far off, like Taako’s watching this from afar. “we gotta get up, now. I know it hurts, but we gotta get you home, okay?”

Taako shakes his head as they stumble back to their feet, trying to lead Merle back into the cave, to find _someone_ that can get the--

To find someone.

  
“I know, I know, Magnus and Julia have it handled. Can you walk, just a bit for me?”

A sigh that shakes and rattles with snot and bone-deep exhaustion, and a nod that takes half the strength out of him.

That’s the last thing Taako truly processes for a while.

~~_7\. My final item is this truth._ ~~

**✧**

There is a temple of the Raven Queen, just outside of Phandalin. It’s small, but well-cared for by the priests, with rosemary and lavender incense thick in the air. A sign out front advertises weekend group therapies for children and teens going through a loss in their family or friend group in a colorful print. 

We are not focusing on that, or the inside of this homey temple. Instead, there is a funeral that ended an hour ago, and three figures clothed in black that stare blankly at a grave in silence. One of them, at the center of the group, holds a black parasol over his head and has been standing there for the past two hours.

Three graves stand in front of them, lined up in a family plot: Stephan, Ann-Marie, and Kravitz Mccalister. The figure with the parasol is centered on Kravitz’s.

Taako lets out a shuddering sigh, wipes tears from his eyes, and shifts the parasol in his hand. “Out with it,” he says, quiet. Lup adjusts her grip on his arm, rubbing comfortingly against the fabric of his shirt with her thumb. “You’ve been fidgeting the entire hour, thought I’d’ve waited you out by now.” The joke falls flat.

Johann clears his throat awkwardly, adjusts his dumb funeral hat, and holds out a folded piece of paper. “Apparently, uh, being an emissary of the Raven Queen makes you prepared. I always thought he was joking when he mentioned having to revise his will, but uh. Guess not. This is for you.” The hand not holding his parasol reaches out, bandaged fingertips dancing across the surface of the paper before Taako seems to get a grip on himself and snatch it up. 

“You waited an _hour_ to give me a letter? Fuck, no wonder you’ve never made a move on Avi.” That, at least, gets a laugh out of Johann, but it feels forced and choked-up. Right. Still processing the death and inevitable un-death of Kravitz, so probably not a good idea to tease him on the one subject Kravitz was merciless with. “Alright, you said your piece, so scram.”

Neither of them turn to see if Johann listened before they turn their heads in slow unison to read the letter. Taako doesn’t hide it from Lup; if it’s a warning about how much time they’ve got to get on the run before he’s sent after them, he wants to know.

Instead, it’s just two simple sentences, written in his careful, precise, elegant penmanship.

_Taako,_

_I’ll return to you. I love you._

_Yours always,_

_Kravitz Mccalister_

Exhaling slowly through his nose, Taako folds up the letter and shoves it into his pocket. He adjusts the flowers on Kravitz’s grave, then does the same for his grandparents; Lup had cleaned their graves while Taako had been staring blankly ahead. They assess their handiwork for a moment before Lup taps the inside of Taako’s elbow, and they turn to leave, heads ducked together in silent conversation. Mostly about what Taako has left to do before he can get his degree and what Lup can do to help accelerate the process because she is, supposedly, bored out of her fucking mind. Taako needs a distraction, so he asks Lup to go to his classes for him while he finishes the final draft of his thesis. She considers, then agrees on the terms of him taking enough breaks to eat and shower.

Kravitz hasn't been seen in two weeks. 

_7\. Come to me when you have found it._

_[There is a doodle of a white raven perched atop a scythe, held by a skeletal, hooded figure with glowing eyes.]_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now we don't have time to unpack all of that, so Happy New Year! This chapter is a chunky bitch, but I've been building up to this moment for so long I got emotional halfway through writing this listening to The Last of Us's Playlist and kinda lost it??? My bad lmao (For anyone wondering, I mostly listen to Hozier, Labrinth, and Griffin's Soundcloud when writing for this fic :) )  
> We're in the endgame from here, but I'm not sure if we have one or two chapters left, so I'll update that when I make up my mind!! Thank you for reading, and you can personally yell at me @hekaerge-athenias on tumblr or follow my concept art following Varali and Asena from earlier chapters in their natural habitat @athenias._ on Instagram!
> 
> Istus's complete request was: "I do what must be done, not what you deem to be right. My truths are the same as yours, no matter how you twist it. So you must unbury the skeletons in your closet, and dig until your fingers bleed. It will hurt you, to know this truth, but it was what was necessary for your fate, for you to live your true self. My final item is this truth. Come to me when you have found it."
> 
> RQ's complete request was: "Go to Hindermount Fortress, my child. There, far, far below in the crypt of my children lost needlessly, you will be needed. I cannot tell you what you seek, for I love you most of my children. But know that when the time comes, you will know it with your entire being. Never forget how much I love you."
> 
> Items in Istus'/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> Current items in Istus/The Raven Queen's possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors  
> 4\. Sapphire gems and an Opal necklace from the Astral Plane, A Vase  
> 5\. The Heart of Our Love, The Phylactery of Fate  
> 6\. Vintage wine, candles, and a bond mended for an old friend.  
> 7\. The Truth You Refuse to Acknowledge (unobtained) and Kravitz, to end the chain of suffering in Hindermount Fortress.


	8. If You Dab Hard Enough You Can Bring Back the Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "So you're... what, here to warn me? Chat? Kill me?"
> 
> "Bingo," she says, and does not elaborate.

It’s in the middle of that awkward phase where Winter turns into Spring when Lup hits Taako upside the head by way of waking him up. She says something about family and wasting time. He insists that he isn’t wasting time (in fact, one could say he was running out of it), only to be fixed with a _look_ . “Weather report says this’ll be the first warm day, Taako,” she said. “Do you _really_ want to spend it locked up in here doing jack shit?”

“My thesis is due in—“

“—Angus misses you.”

So, here he was, standing with his toes in cold sand watching passively as Magnus dunks Lucretia into the water, both laughing uproariously. Barry and Lup are in the middle of trying to figure out how to balance on Taako’s surfboard, arguing loud enough for him to hear them over the breeze. Angus and Davenport are talking animatedly, waving their hands around wildly some ways down the shore as Merle scoops up a handful of dirt and chucks it directly at them. 

Julia had tried to coax Taako into the water, a few hours ago. Didn’t go well. Ended in him snapping at her about how he’s capable of making his own decisions. She cried, then he cried, and now she’s chasing down one of those ice cream carts at full speed because Magnus asked her to. It was true love if Taako ever saw it, and Taako’s seen a lot of dumbasses in love. He _is_ a dumbass in love, even if John’s been trying to tell him it’s best to move on. He knows he has to move on, build up his walls before he has to look the Raven Queen’s first Reaper in the eye and tell him that he’d have to go through him to get to Lup and Barry.

He hasn’t done any of it, the wall-building or the moving on, if that hasn’t been made clear yet. 

It isn’t like he’s moping or procrastinating or depressed or _whatever_. Taako’s good, he’s fine and dandy right here watching his family splash around in the water. He just...doesn’t feel like it would bring him gratification, to go out there and spend the next unknown amount of time pretending that he was having the time of his life. Not like he wouldn’t. Be having the time of his life, he means. Because he is.

He’d just be having more fun. At home. Where he can punch his pillows and pretend he doesn’t try and spend what little time he gets in bed trying to smell Kravitz on the sheets, only to realize that all that’s left now is stale sweat from the last time he woke up crying and screaming. Home is also where his thesis is. Can’t exactly perfect perfection in butt-fuck nowhere.

If he closes his eyes, Taako can sort of slip away. It’s not the same as that wack ass shit John calls disassociating, which, hey, cool, the thing he does has a word, who’d have thunk, but it’s not dissimilar. With the only sound reaching his ears being the sound of Lup letting out a wheezy, obnoxious laugh at Barry inevitably eating shit, he can pretend he’s in a different time, a different place.

But then the air grows cold in this place, as it always does, and their laughter and banter fades until it’s the echoing of caves, distant winds, and the black calm of closed eyes turns into flashes of blue skin and ice where warm smiles used to be. 

So he doesn’t close his eyes. Instead, he watches as Angus goes running into the waves, yelling over his shoulder. Davenport follows. Julia and Magnus unwrap their ice cream bars with the enthusiasm befitting twelve-year-olds. Magnus drops his into the sand. He almost starts crying, before he remembers Merle learned prestidigitation a while back. He doesn’t even bother to run up to Taako looking like a lost puppy, for some reason. Whatever, not like he cares.

He knows someone’s behind him not because his family slows to a stop, turning dull shades of grey, but because he hears distant cursing and something dragging in the sand. “Before we do anything, this for business or pleasure?” He calls out, still staring at Lup’s frozen form. There’s a laugh behind him, but it’s sort of wheezy and echoing like they’re in an empty house.

He sees Istus step into his peripheral. Her sweaters and scarves are gone, replaced with a sun-hat that looks like it was lovingly hand made and gaudy heart-shaped sunglasses. She removes them and turns her horrifying, glowing eyes onto him. “Did you know that I’m not supposed to be here?” She asks, instead of responding to him. She tucks the sunglasses into the neckline of a flowing sundress. Head tilted to the sun, “in my tapestry, it’s written that I never see you in person until you acknowledged your truth.”

“But I haven’t,” he says, and boy _howdy_ does that come out a lot more miserable than he thought. He’s spent weeks trying to find that fucking truth, hell, he even asked _Varali_ to help him with it. She’d just laughed like it was the funniest shit and told him he was on his own. “So you’re… what, here to warn me? Chat? Kill me?”

“Bingo,” she says, and does not elaborate. 

“Uh,” Taako says. 

“Hang on,” Istus says, head still tilted. The sun disappears. There’s teeth instead. Taako doesn’t look at it for long. “When you sleep tonight, you will die. Briefly, just for a second or two in the waking world, but it’s long enough. This will start the following chain of reactions: your microwave will explode, Angus McDonald will cry, and Carey and Kilian will call the fire department and Hurley respectively.”

Taako scowls at Barry’s frozen form, still ass-over-teakettle in mid-air. “Why tell me this? Why solve the riddle you wrote for us?”

Her nails click together, and he sees a ring on her left ring finger, a beautiful pink tourmaline that shimmers without light. Distantly, he recalls raven feathers dusted with pink and a bet with no stakes. When she speaks, her voice isn’t terrifying, nor does it chill him to the bone like usual. It’s quiet. human, almost. “Sometimes I forget that I don’t control everything,” she admits to the air. “And the big picture often leaves… much room for error on your part as mortals.”

  
  


Which, in and of itself, is not an explanation. Taako figures he’s basically an expert at reading through the lines by now, and rightfully stares at her after the few seconds it takes for him to translate. “You mean to tell me this is like, your version of a ‘sorry for your loss’ card or some shit?” Her plump lips tighten uncomfortably, much to Taako’s current hysteria. “Oh, that’s fucking rich coming from you!”

Her eyes narrow, something raw and mortal in the way she analyzes him, laughing until he cries or chokes on air. “It was her request. You have to understand. Taako. You have to _understand_. What I do is not always sunshine and daisies, and you know that, or else you wouldn’t have killed as many people as you have out of anger and then accepted my proposal just to save two more.” He counts to ten, and released his breath, wipes tears away. Istus wrings her hands together. “Not everything that happens is controlled by me. I make the starting point and the finish line.”

“Coulda fooled me.” His upper lip twists bitterly, a wicked smile sent Istus’s way that has her sighing and shaking her head. The sand has turned to worms under their feet. She hands a taco pack to him. She didn’t have one before.

“You know where to find me.” She presses a kiss to his temple, a feather-light brush of lips against his skin that sends electricity through his nerves. Pushing her sunglasses back on, “See you later, alligator.”

Color returns to the world in the split second it takes for Taako to blink. The sun continues shining down on him, lacking any teeth, and the worms are still grains of sand that shift as Taako digs his toes further into them. Barry finishes falling off of the surfboard and taking Lucretia down with him. Lup gets seawater shot directly into her mouth, and she braces herself on Davenport as he approaches. 

The taco pack is still in his hands. He tosses it to Julia, who doesn’t seem to question _where_ he got it, already pumping the air in celebration, and walks into the water with long, careful strides. The water is cold against his skin, soaking through his trunks. Goosebumps rise along his arms. “You’re all fucking awful surfers,” he says and scowls when everyone turns to look at him like he grew a third eye. “Gimme, I’ll show you jackasses how it’s done.”

“I don’t know, Taaks, you’re kinda shitty at surfing, too,” Lup says, still leaning heavily on Davenport. “You sure you can handle it?”

“Oh, fuck off. A guy falls off _one_ time looking at a hot guy. One time!” He yells over his shoulder as he reclaims his surfboard. 

She laughs, happy and free, and Taako pretends that he is, too.

**✧**

It’s hard for Taako, sometimes, to tell when he’s dreaming. So when he blinks open his eyes slowly, brows furrowed as he takes in a night sky that sprawls into infinity with constellations that he doesn’t remember but finds familiar, in a way that your second cousin is familiar, he just sort of shrugs and sits up, unburying himself from the layers of black sand he was submerged in. 

A hand is held out to him, and he takes it, unthinking. It’s only when his eyes well and truly focus that he watches as dark skin stitches over a skull with a glowing red eye, contrasted by the way the gold eye softens at the sight of Taako. Kravitz’s hand is cold, but he quickly drops it when he catches Taako squinting at him, lips twisted into something sorrowful. But he is whole, no frost clinging to his skin that sloughs off like tender meat.

This is, of course, how Taako knows he isn’t dreaming.

Lifting his scythe out of the ground, Kravitz leads Taako to an imperceptible castle that changes shape depending on what angle you’re looking at it. It’s a fucking headache to look at, and he _really_ wishes that it was just straight up invisible instead like the last time. on the upside, it gives him something to focus on while he tries to not cry at the sound of Kravitz’s voice. “Lup and Barry Bluejeans,” he says, and his voice is scratchy with either disuse or screaming, and Taako doesn’t know which is worse. He pauses to lick his lips and take a deep breath, seemingly unbothered by the fact that he hadn’t verbally addressed Taako until now. Clearing his throat, “have been taken into custody by the Raven Queen on the charges of Unlawful Necromancy and evading capture. You would be with them if you weren’t an Emissary of Fate.”

And there’s a point where Kravitz is talking and Taako knows he should be thinking logically, should try and read Kravitz, same as he’s always done because even when he’s not thinking logically he knows Kravitz is an open book. But then he starts talking about crimes that they didn’t commit, not really, and he just sees red. It’s not different from the way he got mad at Istus; Kravitz has no _right_ to talk about their crimes like he knows the whole story, just like the Raven Queen has no right to judge them like her laws are always just and without flaw, and just like Istus had no right to let Kravitz die alone. 

He isn’t even really mad at Kravitz, not really. Taako stopped being mad at Kravitz for leaving him early the moment Johann handed him a letter in a trembling hand, because no one could have predicted they’d ever cross paths, that they would intertwine so deeply. He’s mad for his sister and her husband, for the injustices done upon them. It’s these injustices that lead him to scowl at Kravitz and shout, “That’s bullshit! They didn’t even—”

“—My Queen has agreed to a fair trial. You’re a person of interest, so we need to sort through your memories for the full story.” There’s an exhaustion to him as he leads Taako into the throne room. He must be making some sort of face, because Kravitz sighs. He tries to look reassuring without smiling, and it isn’t a good look on him. “Taako, I know you never wanted them to end up here, but—”

The throne vanishes, as does the remainder of the room, as the doors shut behind them. When Taako turns to tell Kravitz off, to cut it clean, he finds that he’s absent, too. “Taako, Emissary of Istus and master of Transmutation,” says a voice that has the general vibe of a woman, but comes out in fifteen different voices. He glances at his feet to see that he’s on a rising pillar, but he lacks the sensation of vertigo. When it shudders to a stop, he sees an elven woman. She towers over him, in her throne with birds all around her, raven-feathered hair wild and eyes covered by a helmet shaped like a raven’s head. She wears armor, like a paladin ready for war, her hands folded in her lap. Kravitz stands to her right, scythe in hand and face unreadable. Turning, Taako sees Lup and Barry, chained and contained to their platforms. They try to look reassuring for his sake, but the anxiety in Lup’s face does little of anything. “ You know the events that led up to their crime? ”

“She’s my twin, not like she could’ve hidden it from me,” Taako says, trying for a smile that falls when she narrows her eyes. He tries not to let the panic show in his face as his stomach clamps and his throat closes, tight as a vice. “Uh—Okay, uh. I _might_ be the reason why they had to resort to that, which, gonna say it now, we didn’t know what we were—”

“— I have been made aware. ” The Raven Queen descends her throne with the grace becoming of a goddess, which, uh. Makes sense, because she is one. Fuck, Taako needs a nap. Anyway. The Raven Queen is now only a few feet from Taako and still twelve-foot something, which is uhh unnerving. “ If you truly wish for your family to have a chance of walking free, ensure that your heart is open to me. ”

  
  


“We’re fucked, then!” Lup yells from her platform. “Taako hasn’t opened for _shit_ since second grade!”

“Yes, he has. He will.” Kravitz says, voice even. Sure. And there’s something about that certainty that crashes through his haphazard walls, leaves him breathless and uncertain. But Kravitz will side with the Raven Queen. Taako can’t fault him for it, but it doesn’t stop the hurt. He doesn’t meet Taako’s gaze, eyes concentrated on his shoes as a shiver wracks his whole body. A raven with white feathers dotted against black like freckles swoops down from the throne to the top of his scythe. He brings his cloak tighter around his shoulders, still shivering. “Whenever you’re ready, my Queen.”

A clawed hand runs along the length of Taako’s jaw, nudging him until he meets her gaze. “ You had better hope that Istus was right about you,” she says, head tilted to the side as she looks him over like a precious gem.

And then she shoves her hand through Taako’s chest.

He can hear Lup and Barry screaming, distantly, like it’s their hearts being ripped out instead of his. The Raven Queen blocks them out, her presence overwhelming to the point that tears well up in his eyes and fall. Fifteen voices all speaking in disunion, some screaming, some crying, one singing through chattering teeth. Her clawed hands pull out a ball of light that shines bright in the darkness of the room, illuminating them both, and phantom presences ease Taako’s fall to his knees as he heaves and shakes with the absence of his soul. He can only watch, frozen, as she throws it into the air and spreads it out like a flatscreen across the room.

If Taako were able to move, he would have seen Kravitz’s knuckles turn white and the muscles in his jaw stiffen.

The Raven Queen swipes through Taako’s memories idly, eyes half-lidded. The conversation with Istus is entirely cut out, replaced with him standing idly in the sand, but he expected something like that, honestly. He doesn’t know the logistics of it, but hey, she’s not a fucking narc, so. “How far back do I go.” Phrased not as a question, but as a demand.

She swipes through the past weeks without much pause at the constant cycle of Taako in the lab or class. She tenses, frozen momentarily at the sight of Kravitz’s corpse. Taako can hear an intake of breath behind him; the funeral was closed-casket. For all he knows, this was the first time Lup and Barry saw the corpse. It’s not like Taako exactly talked about how he died enough for them to have a detailed picture, just bits and pieces here and there about the cave and the nightcrawler.

“Two years,” the three of them say in unison. Taako catches a glimpse of Kravitz staring wide-eyed at himself with tears welling up in the corner of his eyes. He doesn’t have to look up at his memories to know how many fingers he was missing, how half of his cheek had already sloughed off into the snow. Similarly, he doesn’t have to look up at current Kravitz to know that he would just remind him of it all the same way a slap in the face is vaguely reminiscent of a shot of caffeine. Minds are weird like that. “Mid-July.”

**✧**

It started, as most things did back then, with a video call from Davenport and Lucretia.

They’re stationed in the Felicity Wilds, at the time, having studied the behavioral patterns of the intelligent plant-life and working towards facilitating a treaty to allow them permission to dissect them for their healing and arcana capabilities. Taako had been working on his online degree when he could, charging his laptop in the Frankensteinian amalgamation of wires and ports, courtesy of Davenport’s recent insomnia.

The video call came abruptly as they argued over the morality of killing sentient plants over dinner. Lucretia appeared first, sitting on a desk chair with refined grace. The Bond Engine glowed in the reflection of her glasses. Davenport answered before they could start any pleasantries, covered head to toe in mud. Merle was laughing, somewhere off-camera. “So,” Lucretia said, “I’ve got a report from that kid Taako ran into in Rockport. Says that Glamour Springs is overrun by a famine that’s killed dozens, and has a lead that points to it being arcane in origins. Doesn’t want to solve it himself, on account of him being, and I quote, a ‘growing boy detective’ so he passed it to me.”

“Yeah, we heard.” Davenport began wiping at his face methodically with the baby wipes Merle offered him. He looked tired, but none of them were exactly getting eight hours of sleep nowadays anyway. Taako would know; he had been keeping track. “Nasty business, that. I thought about rerouting Magnus and Julia that way, but they’re not exactly well-sourced in the management of goods. So it’s between us and you three.”

Barry looked up at the forest sprawling out into infinity with something like mourning in his eyes. Lup sighed and patted his shoulder with sympathy, leaning to look over Taako's shoulder at the stone’s display. Her face scrunched up, analytic, then accusing. Taako probably could have figured out whatever the _hell_ type of conclusion Lup just reached if he tried, but it’s above his pay grade.“You’ve already made up your mind,” she said, eyes narrowed to slits. “You _bastard_ , you already know who to send!”

“Between the three of you, two of you know how to make a meal from anything put in front of you and one of you has an actual fucking master’s degree in necromancy, which this nightmare might end up being.” Merle appeared in the background, eating beef jerky and yelling at the sky. “We can make it to the Wilds in a day with the Starblaster, and you can get to Glamour Springs in two if we switch places fast enough.”

Lucretia reached out to touch the Bond Engine with a free hand, pen hanging loose from her mouth. “You’ll be able to make it,” she confirmed. “I’ll make sure to send a text to Killian, she’ll be able to give a heads up to Glamour Springs before your arrival.”

“Have I ever told you I’m in love with your contact network?” Taako said as he picked at his teeth with a chicken bone, “because I’m in love with your contact network. Luc. You’ve _got_ to get me in with your guys.”

She laughed, her pen clattered to the desk. “Sorry, Noelle was _very_ particular about who we let in, and you know what? I’ve got to agree with her, ‘no dumbfucks in wizard hats’ is a pretty solid exception.” 

“But you’ll let an _eight-year-old_ in?”

“Angus is invaluable, you take that back right fucking now.”

Behind Davenport, Merle had somehow managed to get a pretzel stick wedged halfway up his nose, and his X-Treme Teen Bible is on fire in his hands. They all seemed to notice it, from the varying degrees of horror that flickered across their faces, but all elected to ignore it. “We’ll be heading out in an hour, then,” Davenport said, loud enough for Merle to hear over his own screams. “You three work on getting some rest and explaining to the ecosystem what’s going on until we get there. Davenport out.”

“Lucretia out. Goodnight, you three.”

“...So do you think Merle’s going to burn his eyebrows off again?” Lup asked. She held out a hand for the sour gummy worms Barry bought at a Fantasy 7/11 a few days prior.

Taako snagged the blue and yellow worm from her open palm. “Oh absolutely.”

The ecosystem was understanding, if not mildly perplexed by their situation. They assured them that they would try their best not to torment Davenport, but left no such promises for Merle, which was about the best they could have hoped for. Barry tried to assort their notes in a way that would be easy enough for Merle and Davenport to decipher to continue their research in their absence (read: tried), while Lup and Taako did their damndest to pack up. 

They were in the process of shoving a tent into Taako’s pocket spa when the Starblaster came roaring through the trees. The miniwagon sputters and roars the entire time it spent screeching to a halt and unearthing grass from the dirt. Davenport looked at them from the driver’s seat with a brow cocked and his aviators pushed down his nose— 

**✧**

“—skip forward a bit,” Taako wheezes, still struggling to get his breath. Pins and needles stab at his chest where his soul was taken from him, sharp little stabbing pains that spread from his lungs to his brain. Dimly, he thinks that he’d rather be dead for real than have to go through this. “The drive was super fucking boring and Barry vomited on my favorite pants.”

“You said you wouldn’t mention that again!”

“Yeah well, you said you wouldn’t get arrested by a literal god, so here we are!”

“Taako,” says Lup and Kravitz, in exasperated unison. He turns to glare at his sister instead of the other one, who he is resolutely _ignoring_ , thank you very much. She raises her brows at him. “Drop it.”

Mimicking her in the legally required high-pitched voice, Taako returns to his memories with a roll of his eyes. “Stop when you see me in front of a BnB kitchen. That’s when shit pops off.”

**✧**

When it came down to it, Lup was the one to suggest it. They hadn’t been two days into their search when she took one look at a starving family, turned to Taako, and said, “we need to help.”

So. In the day time they would be searching, tireless, after the culprit (Taako _knew_ it was a culprit. Whoever started this famine did it with intent and left bloodied footprints everywhere. It was just a matter of finding the shoes), after their notes and arcane residues. At night, the citizens of Glamour Springs would bring something, anything edible to Taako and Lup, and they would transmute it all into rations. 

That night, it had been chili. Sugar into beans, a can of tofu into ground beef, and water into tomato sauce and salsa. Taako did all of the prep, the transmutation, not because he didn’t trust anyone else but… okay, yeah, he didn’t trust any of those fools. Lup and Barry had shoveled tiny bowlfuls of food into their mouths in between serving while Taako had made an excuse of not being hungry and instead opted to review a witness report to find a new lead. Or any lead, really. Taako was starting to get desperate. And also the spas here looked _fantastic_ and he was dying to use them, but that’s only here or there.

The symptoms of an Atrophy Curse in humans is immediate and devastating, but no less lethal to them than an elf, according to Cullen Ruthridge’s editorial on necrotic magic. 

“Hey, uh, Taako?” Lup called out, voice shaky. Taako groaned, popped his knuckles, and rolled out of his chair with a noise of acknowledgment. “Can you get the fuck over here? Like, now?”

“Thank you for your time,” he called over his shoulder to the bewildered witness. Lup’s head vanishes back into the kitchen. “Your report will go towards the greater good of Faerun past, present, blah blah blah bla— oh what the _fuck_.”

The other cooks and volunteers were frozen, most formed in a half-circle around Barry. He was sweating profusely, eyes unfocused as he stared at the ceiling light. Lup worked on unbuttoning his shirt, following the faint line of black down his esophagus. Taako waved his hand in the air, mage hand keeping the doors locked and the kitchen window barred. “I’ve got it too,” Lup explained, hands trembling. Taako’s heart pounded in his skull, stomach clenched. A cold sweat ran down the back of his neck. No no no no no, he thought, a mantra echoing in his ears. Not her. _Anyone_ but her. “It’s not as bad, sure, but… doesn’t matter. Whoever did this is in the room. I don’t care what you do to the suspect, just make sure you’ve got the right one. I’ll work on stabilizing Barry and help others. Water should work.”

It took Taako ten minutes to find Sazed. 

The evidence was immediate and incriminating, the poison still on his person. Hate burned in his eyes as he kept Taako’s gaze, even when his little book of curses and necromancy was pulled from his apron. It was the sort of hatred that had no logic behind it, anger for the sake of selfishness and selfishness alone. In the end, though, Sazed’s anger had meant nothing, and everything came down to the fact that Taako hadn’t noticed. He hadn’t been able to stop him before he did irreversible damage, and then it was too late.

It was too late and it was all his _fucking_ fault. 

It took two more minutes for Sazed to stop breathing. He was little less than a person, by that point, his skull caved and bloodied under the blunt force of the pan Taako had found nearest to him. Even that was unrecognizable, the metal warped under the force. Blood stained Taako’s skin, turning tears and snot that streamed down his face pink. “Burn the body,” he registered himself saying, white sleeve rubbing at his nose. It came away with blood stains and snot. His hands trembled when he dropped the pan. “It’ll end the famine.”

“And the others?”

“Stop them from eating if they haven’t already, start looking for symptoms of the Atrophy. Sweaty skin, nausea, and black lines down their throat.” That was Lup, now, voice steady and calm. “Taako. Taako, hey. Look at me. We’re fine. We’ll be fine.”

Rough hands, calloused from a violin bow, wiped at Taako’s face, effectively smearing the blood everywhere. He didn’t notice. “Lucretia,” he said, and coughed until his throat stopped throbbing. Lup’s hands remained on his face, watching him carefully for a breaking point. He knew he should have been pissed at her for thinking this would break him, but he was too tired for more anger. “Lucretia’ll know what to do.”

**✧**

“Forty-one people dead in Glamour Springs, victims of a plague, officials warn nearby towns of a quarantine,” Kravitz recites, squinting down at the newspaper in his hands. Taako blinks. Tries to recall when the newspaper got there in the first place and… nope, nada. Where the _fuck_ did he get that from? Out his ass? “Never mentions the plague being the Atrophy.”

The Raven Queen tilts her head, lips pursed. “ _Not all of them were. I spoke with the killer, this Sazed, when he passed into my realm. The intent was for the curse to go to the Accused. All other casualties were purely accidental, severe cases of food poisoning as a result of his meddling. He was rather smug with his handiwork._ ” Her golden eyes turn to Taako, burning into his very being. Her voice sends shivers down his spine, instills false terror in his bones. He only knows it’s false because she’s too similar to Kravitz and… well, no matter what happens, Taako can say with a hundred percent certainty that Kravitz was never scary, even when half his face was a skull. “ _You were not meant to kill him, that day._ ”

Taako shrugs, ignoring the burning of his palms from where his nails broke the skin. “Then he shouldn’t have tried to kill my sister. We all make mistakes in the little plans Istus set aside for us.” His smile is dazzling, poisonous. Kravitz looks away from him. Something nasty inside Taako finds joy in it. The rest of him is just tired. He gestures to his memories, still playing through his stone call to Lucretia. “Go on, your majesty. I’m sure you’re dying to figure out how we got here.”

The feathers that make up her hair ruffle, and settle back into place. She sighs deep through her nose. “ Kravitz, I _will_ fire you if it comes out you took after this one. ”

“Oh no, _please_ don’t fire me, my Queen. Whatever would I do?”

“Don’t be dramatic. It’s unbecoming of you.”

Kravitz coughs into his elbow, smothering a laugh. He adjusts his scythe and resumes his previous stoic stance. Taako finds it hard to reconcile this with the barely-there glimpse of life. “Of course, my queen.”

**✧**

Lucretia got him the job at the Neverwinter Library of Arcane History, of course. In a better world, in a happier world, it would have been out of pity for her jobless friend. Instead, it was help in the only way she could provide-- free access to all the information they would need. She’d organized the interview, put in a good word, and called Taako from the women’s restroom to tell him that he can freely roam the catacombs as an employee. 

He had looked at Lup, face sheen with sweat and cheeks hollow as she writhes in the bathtub of the apartment they’d hastily rented a few days prior, and asked her to help him with his portfolio. 

Later, much later, Taako would grow to appreciate the Catacombs and, subsequently, envy the workers after he got fired. But back then, it was a daze to him; Lucretia would come in disguised as Taako to do his shift for him, and he would vanish into the Catacombs and spend half of his shift pouring through book after book, scrambling for a cure to the Atrophy. 

Taako woke up, couldn’t remember when he went to sleep, spent two hours arguing with Lup and Barry over their current theory that they would abandon by the end of the week. Went to the library. Went to the catacombs. Cried over dusty tombs because he was going to lose his sister and that meant losing himself, too. He went home, tried to make dinner and ended up collapsed on the floor with broken plates and spilled spaghetti sauce on his lap and hands more often than not. Stared at the sauce until it was blood and the plates were forty corpses strewn about. Let Lup and Barry clean him up. Took a cold shower. Tried to find a cure long after they went to bed.

Rinse and repeat.

It was on a day very much like this that Taako came across a thick, dusty tome in the furthest corner of the Catacombs. The spine was faded and peeling, but the first page had the title printed in crisp, blue ink.

_The Notes of Estranged Professor Serechor, Volume One_

_Note that all pages on how the Professor achieved his quote en-quote (there is a hole in the paper, here, where a word is missing) have been removed, courtesy of his successor, Diane Hartwood._

_DO NOT COPY AND REDISTRIBUTE_

He could never properly explain what drew him to that book, what made him pick it up with his gloved hands and bring it over to the main desk and pour over the contents. In the present, Taako was very much aware that it was Istus, pulling the strings until the world shifted to fit her tapestry. But back then it was a feeling, a curiosity that passed the ache of exhaustion seeped into his bones and awoke the person he was not two months ago. 

He stole the book by shoving it into his pocket spa and finished his shift. Or, he spent two more hours vibrating in his seat until Lucretia had sighed, said “I’ll call Johann up to take over your shift,” and dismissed him without another word. 

Barry had promptly dropped a glass of orange juice on his foot when Taako showed him the book. Lup cursed from her spot on the couch, but didn’t look up from her book— healing remedies or something of the sort. “Taako, what the fuck,” he said in a breathless voice, grasping for his inhaler, “I’ve only ever _heard_ of this book. Every necromantic scholar in Faerun’s been trying to get their hands on it for centuries!”

“Yeah, I figured, but look at this entry,” he’d said, and carefully opened the book to the thirty-seventh page. Clearing his throat, “‘ _Majdere_ pointed out that my theory could help those with the Incurable Disease. They could live, could be healed of the mysteries that assault their systems. I’ve done the calculation, and it’s got an eighty-nine chance of success that, should the experiment succeed, my body will reset. All cells will die and regenerate, all of the toxins and poisons in my body will flush out. Will poison self before test.’ They ripped out the results and the actual process, but this means that whatever he did _worked_.”

At least, the public assumed it worked. It was hotly debated in some circles of academia, whether or not the purging of professor Serechor’s life’s work was because it failed spectacularly and the old Neverwinter Arcane College was ashamed, or it worked, and the NAC burned it off of the face of Faerun because of taboo or whatever. 

So. Who the fuck knew. Not Taako, that was for damn sure, but he could write you a twenty-page paper telling you why he thinks it could’ve, citations included. He sighed through his nose and willed his shoulders to relax. “And if it worked, then that means it’ll work for you.” His voice wavered as he looked from Barry to Lup and they looked back.

Slowly, they turned to each other, communicated in complicated looks, then turned back to Taako. “Then what are we waiting for?” Lup said, her book tossed aside. “Let’s figure out how he did it.”

And so the cycle went, only, things shifted. Lup and Barry got worse, had days spent in bed more than out. Taako stopped sleeping entirely, took short meditations during his lunch break. He started compiling all known books published by Serechor, not just his life’s work that got him exiled. This led to him compiling all known books _about_ him by Diane Hartwood and Cullen Ruthridge because Barry had burst into Taako’s room one night in a fevered haze and said ‘Taako? Taako, what if they were in on it’ and, well. There he was.

Merle and Davenport moved into the new apartment available down the hall from Taako, Lup, and Barry to keep an eye on things. They all pretended they weren’t aware that they were trying to be here for them if all else failed. Lup forced Merle to amend things with Hekuba for the sake of his kids. Magnus and Julia continued their work across Faerun, calling every night for updates. Lucretia conspired with Taako, reviewed their notes.

Lucretia also had Taako shave her head at one-thirty in the morning while she read a book to him. His hands kept shaking and by the end of it her head was bleeding in one or two spots, but she never said a word. It was almost relaxing.

Almost.

And then, one afternoon, Merle had pulled Taako aside.

It was after their daily check-ups; contrary to popular belief, Merle _was_ a healer, and good at it, after the past nine years he’s spent brushing up on his stuff and enduring the inevitable failures. Dinner was pizza and beer, much to Taako’s chagrin and Barry’s glee, and for once no one threw it up half an hour later.

In retrospect, Taako sort of knew something was off about Merle after he’d finished checking over Lup. He was stiff, fidgeting with his hands and tapping his leg with anxious energy. So in that regard, he wasn’t entirely surprised when he’d turned to Taako, said, “come with me?” And led him to the bathroom. He was just feeling... empty. Exhausted. He hadn’t slept in three days by that point (but he had meditated at noon), and elves don’t actually _need_ sleep but at some point, they’d become reliant on it because Merle always told them to indulge a little bit. It came back to bite his ass at that moment because he was twitchy and couldn’t see straight unless it was pitch black and he might’ve been able to fight god if he got the chance but all he had the energy for was research. 

He hardly noticed Merle had steered him to sit directly on the closed toilet seat to make them eye level. Or because his knees were a little wobbly. Who knows. Water is pressed into his hands (when did Merle get that?), and rough, calloused hands smooth the tension from his shoulders. “—Don’t know much about the Atrophy,” Merle was saying when Taako’s bastard of a brain decided to catch up. “But it’s, Ah. It’s pretty horrible. I thought it’d be worse in Barry, what with him starting off the worst, but Lup’s…” his eyes got cloudy, distant. “Her organs’ve already started deteriorating. At this rate, she’ll be dead by next month.”

Taako blinked at the floor, or, rather, through Merle and at where the floor would have been. A month or two ago, he would’ve panicked at the mere thought of losing Lup. And he still did, to some extent, if the shaking of his hands said anything, but Taako hadn’t been doing much of the whole ‘feeling’ thing lately. Cup stowed on the counter, he rose unsteadily to his feet and released a slow exhale. “I need to get back to work,” he’d said, and left. 

One month. 

He’d talked to Barry when they were alone the next day, who in turn called Lucretia down, and swore her to silence.

One month, Merle had said.

They got it done in two weeks.

For the sake of time (or the more likely case, Taako’s swiftly deteriorating well-being), they had agreed upon beginning the ritual at six A.M, in the empty third room of the apartment they’d crammed all their work and rolling whiteboards into. 

It was decided from the beginning that Taako would be the sole witness. should things have gone awry, they would had rather him be the last person they saw above all others. It was a touching sentiment if nothing else. In retrospect, they probably should have had Merle come over just in case they _did_ beef it, but Lup and Barry were so confident that their plan would work it just sort of slipped their minds. Taako didn’t have enough brainpower left to even consider brushing his hair, so forgive him for having forgotten to go against their confidence.

So, with Barry in jeans and a red blanket, as crimson as the shitty “uniforms” Davenport had bought them for their adventures, Lup dressed to the nines, and Taako in the clothes he had slept in the past two days, they began. 

The process went as follows. Barry and Lup painstakingly went through the bonding of their phylacteries to their souls, lights and bonds blinding as the sun. Once that was finished they looked to each other, then to Taako, and showed him what they had made. Once he approved, they would pull them around their necks, breathe in deep, and down the potions they had brewed the night before. 

Then they collapsed to the floor, dead and cold, and Taako would wait, eyes heavy and heart pounding like war drums against his chest, for the next forty-eight hours.

It was a simple theory, following Serechor’s claims of a cure as a guideline but, once a more concrete plan took shape, began to turn to trickery. See, the Atrophy was often regarded, in what few books it was mentioned, as being a “living curse.” The only other living person to have it contracted (a woman currently with the Goldcliff Militia only lovingly referred to as ‘the Harbinger’) told whoever would listen that it was like a parasite that ate up everything that made her _her_ , up until she made a pact with a demon to slow the progression. She would be dead in two years if Merle’s guess held any credibility. So, having known it has some sort of cognitive ability, they decided: if they could not kill the curse, then let it believe it succeeded. Let their souls leave their bodies, just long enough for the Atrophy to exit the hosts. 

And so, Lup and Barry died for two full days, and Taako got to watch their bodies slowly decompose over a box of Apple Cinnamon Cheerios and a bottle of grey goose with bated breath.

There was nothing in the world that compared to the sheer relief that flooded his system the moment he tasted Ozone on his tongue and red electricity began crackling in the air. Slowly, two figures rose out of the bodies of his family; both clad in red, both black, indistinguishable figures with glowing white eyes. Taako shoveled a spoonful of cereal in his mouth, wiped away tears, and watched, jaw slacked, as the first liches in 600 years stabilized and slunk back into their bodies. 

Lup groaned, slowly and groggily, but not painfully, as she pushed herself on her elbows. “ _Fuck,_ ” she said, with feeling. “I feel like a freight train just hit me. Babe, you with us?”

Barry held a thumbs up from where he was sprawled face down on the floor. The sight was enough to get Taako laughing, and then they were laughing, too, overjoyed and happy because it had _worked_.

With tears streaked down his face Taako had been hugged by his sister with her full strength for the first time in months.

It had worked, and he had never felt more alive.

Even when they had crashed the Starblaster three months later, Taako was still coming down from the high, his weight supported by Lup’s as they waited for help. “Hang on,” she’d said, “We’ll get to the hospital soon.” Her voice was steady, calm to mask her anxieties and fears. It was ironic, he thought, that her head injury and bleeding abdomen would still leave her the better off of the two. This was, of course, entirely fucking false. What Taako had failed to notice, as they waited under the night sky and watched the ambulance pull up, was that the shrapnel that had dug into his leg had him bleeding at an accelerated rate. Later, the doctors would tell him he had a concussion as well, but that happens to the best of us.

It was only when his vision started to go bleary around the edges, the ground swaying beneath him as he hauled Lup up onto her feet and towards the stretcher, that he was hit with a startling revelation that left him elated.

Taako was finally afraid of dying.

**✧**

They stand in silence as the Raven Queen swiftly and meticulously reviews the events a second time, her hand over her mouth and eyes narrowed. Kravitz shifts almost uncomfortably from where he stands at her side, making what is undeniably awkward eye contact with both Lup and Barry. “Hm,” she says when she finishes combing through Taako’s thoughts. 

“That’s it?” Taako asks, breathless. Sharp pains tickle at his stomach. “Just ‘hm’? Shouldn’t that be enough to—“

His memories are shoved, abruptly, back into his chest, effectively shutting him up. The Raven Queen returns to her throne with all of the other ravens that speak with her and waves a hand in a vague motion. “Kravitz, you may begin.”

If Taako hadn’t been gasping, writhing on the floor, he would have been halfway to Kravitz by now flinging spells left and right the moment the Raven Queen said his name. Truly, he would have. Instead, he wasn’t even able to cast prestidigitation. And so he was reduced to weak little protests of, “don’t you dare,” and “For the love of _Istus_ ,” which was, admittedly, not an insult, but getting his soul back was like passing a goddamn kidney stone, so you can cut him some slack on that.

Kravitz doesn’t look to Taako as he walks to his own, desolate podium, head held high and scythe tightly in his hands. He looks to Lup, then Taako, and releases the tension in his shoulders. Taako struggles to his feet, fishing for his wand when Kravitz does the impossible. 

He turns to face the Raven Queen. “According to Ordinance Three of the Laws of the Raven Queen, no true crime is committed against you if they had no awareness that what they have done is unspeakable. Your fourth law, of course, states that any person who has willingly become a lich is sentenced to the Eternal Stockade.” Taking a grounding breath, “they know what they are now, and have known for some time, presumably before I met them, but this is contributed wholly to Angus McDonald and his investigations, now posted publicly in the Neverwinter Times under a pseudonym. That was how I learned of liches before you took me back under your wing. On the Prime Material plane, your fourth law doesn’t exist. Or, rather, they changed the wording. According to the International Temple of Your Will, Ordinance Four is, in simple terms, to not give yourself to unholy powers to enhance your abilities.”

Taako balks at Kravitz, jaw dropped and eyes wide. Call him a fucking idiot, but he never… he never expected that Kravitz defending them was even a _possibility_. He can see Lup, in the distance, smiling and watching his presentation of their case with fondness. Barry fidgets and adjusts his glasses, content with being represented but itching to get his own two cents in.

“Lup and Barry’s memories weren’t as solid as Taako’s. I would have a lot missing if my body melted from inside out, too. But Taako’s suggest with clarity that none of them were aware that what they had re-discovered was the ticket to becoming a Lich, and that’s just the problem— your followers erased the term from Faerun and it’s history. Barring Professor Serechor’s crimes and distribution of the ritual, his successor Diane Hartwood, if what I saw in Taako’s memories and the clear gaps in her books were anything to go off of, had all of her warnings against his methods burned off of the face of the planet just because she _mentioned_ what he became.” He meets Taako’s eye then, all of his surefire confidence bleeding into the corners of the room. “Am I wrong on this assumption?”

It takes a few seconds for Taako to realize he’s talking to him, but he ends up coughing awkwardly and staring at his feet as he explains, “well, no, not really? I mean, you’re probably right. Uh. There was a lot missing from her published works. I just thought they weren’t legible, but… Um. Yeah, no, you’re right.” Realizing just a second too late that Taako needs to back up Lup in any way he can and he sure as hell isn't doing that by rambling, he says, “they wouldn’t have gone through with it if it meant going against the laws of the Raven Queen.”

“But you would have?” She asks, head tilted and eyes shimmering under her mask and lips tilted at the corners. It would be almost charming if it didn’t leave Taako scared shitless by how transparent he is to her.

“If it meant saving Lup and Barry? Absolutely. But I didn’t know, either. No one could’ve seen that coming. We just thought we were being clever, tricking the Atrophy and all that.”

Leaning back in her throne, she waves at Kravitz in a ‘get on with it’ gesture. He looks away from Taako with a smile, and this one doesn’t drop to something awkward. It stays plastered across his lips, stretching the mimicked skin of a body rotting six-feet under, just as true as it was when the body was alive, if not more tired. 

It does more to Taako’s nerves than he’ll ever admit, but his heart still runs at five miles a minute. “My personal feelings and commitment to this case aside, these two are undoubtedly an exception. Barring their decade spent bettering Faerun, the fault of their undeath lies not in their desperation but in your more overzealous worshippers. You have made an exception for me, fourteen years ago, in turn for my service. I request the same deal be given to the accused.” Head tilted up in defiance, “the outcome of this trial was set up since the beginning of time, My Queen. I only pray that you play your part as I have done mine.”

There is a deafening silence that falls over the room the moment Kravitz finishes speaking. The ravens tilt their heads curiously, even the raven with dots of white feathers that left Kravitz sometime during the whole ‘let’s look into Taako’s soul, that sounds like a great plan’ fiasco. Clawed fingers tap on the arm of the throne, catching a pink tourmaline ring in the light. Taako chews on the inside of his cheek and ignores the anxiety coiling in his stomach. Barry adjusts his glasses for the fifth time in the past two minutes. 

Kravitz doesn’t have his glasses on. 

Taako squints at him.

Kravitz doesn’t squint back, because he can’t see him out of the corner of his eye.

The Raven Queen squints back instead.

Taako doesn’t know how to unpack that.

“Uh. Are you going to say something?” Lup asks, “because I can practically feel everyone going through the stages of grief right now and let me tell you, it is _not_ fun at all. Like, normally it’s fine, but I can feel Taako’s stupid yearning from all the way over here and it is _killing me_.”

“I’m _not_ yearning.”

“I am,” Kravitz admits, still staring at the Raven Queen. 

“Aw, Krav! That’s gay.”

“Only for—”

“—I sentence the accused Lup and Barry Bluejeans to spend the remainder of their mortal lives repairing the errors of my church to enact my true will and keep history from repeating itself.” The Raven Queen takes a pause, head tilted in amusement as everyone in the room lets out a collective sigh of relief. “However, your crimes cannot go unpunished, despite your...unnatural circumstances. Beginning one year from now, you will train under Kravitz to join my retinue of reapers for eternity, as per his request. I cannot remove what you are from your souls, but I can change you, stabilize you enough to serve a purpose. Do we have a deal? ”

Taako doesn’t look around his shoulder to see Lup and Barry bow low and deep as they give their affirmation, doesn’t tear his eyes from Kravitz’s partially hidden face until he’s turning, raven feather’s cloak billowing with unfelt winds. He’s still smiling, a bright and hopeful thing that makes Taako feel like he can do anything, because this was not the end. Lup and Barry met the Raven Queen and lived and this was not the end for any of them. He could love, and he could _be_ loved. 

For as much as he calls himself a liar, or how much the world paints him as such, Taako desperately wishes for his lies to be something real, to some capacity. He wishes that he could cook without his hands shaking, dream without nightmares where _he_ ate the chili. He wishes that he lived in a world where he could be honest, except every time he _was_ he’d lose everything. He wishes that Kravitz loved Taako enough to defy all the laws of his goddess just to keep his family safe.

He can’t have all of them, all of these wishes for one person, and so fate gives him one for free.

  
  


A shy smile, hair charms that shine golden under simulated lights, and hands that hold a scythe like a lifeline. “Can I come over?” in the same quiet, private voice reserved just for Taako. Unspoken is, _‘I can do that now. I couldn’t before, and I’m so, so sorry_.’

So here’s the truth that was once a lie: Kravitz’s heart was Taako’s from the very beginning, and he was a fool to have ever thought otherwise.

“It’ll be weird,” Taako says, thinking of ominous warnings and a sun turned to teeth. “Like, weirder than usual, I mean.” He does not say ‘ _no, I can’t forgive you for something out of your hands_ ’. He does not say, ‘ _I can only think about your rotting corpse every time I see you_ ’. Because these are not things Kravitz had a say in, taken from his hands the moment he grabbed the sword of a long-dead paladin.

The smile widens, blinding, warming Taako by the sight of it alone. How could he have been so blind, all this time, to not know that Kravitz would never betray him and his trust? He was an idiot, he knows, but no other boyfriend of Taako’s would turn ecstatic at the prospect of being near him even for a moment. After reassurances that his response _was_ a yes (“I don’t want to assume—“ “babe, I love you, but _please_ assume, I think I’d die if I had to tell you anything explicitly”), Taako had taken off through the halls of the Astral Plane castle. Kravitz seemed to want to offer to lead him back to the beach, but the Raven Queen had simply waved him into silence and shared a brief, personal wink with Taako.

Which, Taako doesn’t know how to unpack her knowing, so he’s just going to pretend that never happened.

He wakes up to chaos. Lup and Barry are cursing frantically in the kitchen as Taako shakes sleep from his limbs. Smoke and electricity hang heavy in the air. Angus is sitting next to Taako, eyes puffy and cheeks red with dried tears. “The microwave wake you up?” He asks, voice scratchy with sleep, as he pulls himself to his feet and ties his night robe around his waist. At the perplexed look sent his way, “I got a heads up, little man. C’mon, you can spend the rest of the night at Merle’s, think Lucretia stayed the night.”

Lup and Barry are engaged in an argument with the firefighters in the kitchen as Taako passes, but they stop just long enough to smile at him, reassuring any of his remaining unease. He returns it without having to force his body into complying. None of them verbally acknowledge the smoldering parts of the microwave on the tile. 

In the living room, Carey and Killian are talking to Magnus over a stone of farspeech as he reassures them, tells them that the arcane energy must have been one of the experiments in the third room. They seem to think it was an electrical fire, all things considered, but anyone with even a little experience in the arcane would know otherwise. Magnus knows this, and covers their tracks without even being asked. Good boy,

Taako sends Angus down the hall to Merle and Davenport’s with a light shove to his shoulders and a nod. He stands there, watching his retreating back until the door swings open. He catches Lucretia’s warm smile, reserved just for Angus, and hears the beginnings of an offer of tea before they both vanish into the depths of the dark apartment. 

When he turns back, Kravitz is there. 

And it’s like the wind was torn from Taako’s lungs and filled with love and _joy_ , enough so that he can push the memories of Hindermount Fortress far enough to ignore them, to put them in storage until he’s ready to deal with them. He holds himself awkwardly, dressed up in one of those fancy suits he wore in life and fiddling with his hands like he didn’t know what to do with them, but Taako doesn’t care. Because, see, there’s a difference between seeing Kravitz in a simulation of a dream, a falsehood of death, and being able to _touch_. Being able to see the wealth of emotions behind his eyes, the cards that were always lying face-up on the table.

It’s long overdue that Taako pries his cards from his chest.

He takes Kravitz’s hands in his, fingers intertwined.

“Come on, I’ve missed you,” he says, even though he had to force it from his throat.

Kravitz smiles, then, and Taako is certain he made the right choice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was beta'd by my close friend @completely_original, who would like me to convey the following message:  
> "Sorry it took this long i'm a bitch and that's my only excuse". Thank you, Vika, very cool! 
> 
> But really, we're sorry it took so long to put this chapter out! It's been completed for over a month now and the next one is entirely written out as well, but I needed to make sure that nothing came across as rushed or, god forbid, retconned. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I let something like that get published ngl,,,
> 
> Thank you for your patience :)
> 
> Items in Istus'/The Raven Queen's Possessions:  
> Current items in Istus/The Raven Queen's possessions:  
> 1\. Raven’s Feather, Pink Tourmaline  
> 2\. The last living plant at Miller Labs, Istus’s spare needles and thread  
> 3\. The Chalice of Many Horrors, The Key to All doors  
> 4\. Sapphire gems and an Opal necklace from the Astral Plane, A Vase  
> 5\. The Heart of Our Love, The Phylactery of Fate  
> 6\. Vintage wine, candles, and a bond mended for an old friend.  
> 7\. The Truth You Refuse to Acknowledge (Obtained) and Kravitz, to end the chain of suffering in Hindermount Fortress.


	9. So I'm Sitting There, Barbecue Sauce on my Exposed Chest Cavity—

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I heard she was the reason office chairs aren’t allowed in Water Deep anymore, but don’t quote me on that.”
> 
>   
> Kravitz nods. “Oh, she is, but she insists she had nothing to do with the giant octopus, but the riot was all her.” 
> 
>   
> “Really? Huh. Just when you think you know a guy…” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 4/9/20: Apparently AO3 didn't save some changes when I published the chapter, so I went through and fixed them. This also includes the publication date (moved to today), which was for some reason set three days before when I initially published it??? idk Quarantine is making my life a nightmare

It began like this:

Tender hands that touched the concept of him, whispered reassurances as he raged and cried out for Taako Taako Taako _Taako_. They stitch him together, these hands, piece by piece until he knows his name is Kravitz, until he is something beyond this broken record. There is a trembling to him, to his soul, to the body that she creates for him, a cold that he cannot shake. She pulls the string taut with a whisper of a name, and he is again complete, in the same way that a C-4 is complete; a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.

But then, it also began like this, in a separate time:

Ravens that follow Kravitz through trees and lead him far, far away from the circle of death and carnage. He could never see the eyes, of course, but there was never a doubt that they were always her, even before he knew it.

Or it began like this:

Ice prickles at his skin and he knows he’s dying, some primal part of him, but he feels so warm and his body is blissfully numb, heartbeat slow enough that he thinks he could finally sleep. Later, he will know that the ice ripped into him like daggers, and the wound in his gut burned him from the inside out. But for now, he allows himself to rest, blissfully unaware.

It began in whatever beginning is quantifiable as a start in the eyes of the Gods, but all of these beginnings of Kravitz, stretched to multitudes, now know this:

It always begins, the same way that it ends-- with a cave. 

This time, the _first_ time, Kravitz is blinking sedation from his eyes, the murky cave swimming. He sees hooded figures standing over him, murmuring to one another. He catches bits and pieces about incantations and circles, one person noting with a professional detachment that “the sacrifice” was awake. The last thing he can remember was the walk home, arms full of papers and a spell hitting him square between his shoulders.

So, needless to say, wherever he is, it sure ain’t Kansas, that’s for damn certain. 

“Uh,” he says. The figures widely ignore him. He tests the restraints that tie him to the cold stone, eyeing the frayed rope with a raised brow. Belatedly, he realizes he must’ve lost his glasses in the commotion, from the way everything a few feet in front of him blurs. Honestly, it wouldn’t have killed them to grab them after they knocked him out. It's not like they had to take any detours. “I _really_ hope this isn’t a sex dungeon.”

One of the figures looks at him, then looks at another figure at their side. He _th_ _inks_ they’re trying not to laugh, but he isn’t entirely sure. Mostly they just look like they have sticks up their asses. He doesn’t try to speak again when he picks up little words like “keep still” and, “what do we do with the body”. Because he’s not stupid. He knows that A, this is very _very_ bad, B, he should be putting his energy into finding an exit and C, his prayers to the Raven Queen his entire life should amount to fucking _something_ , or the first thing he’s doing when he dies is punching his grandmother in the face. 

Without his glasses, Kravitz is basically fucked— he can see an exit, a blurry shape, but unless he finds a knife or remembers a spell strong enough to set himself free he doesn’t stand a chance. Even if he doesn't stand a chance, it doesn't mean that he shouldn’t try, shouldn’t give up and just let them do _whatever._ And he doesn’t give up, because he is a Mcallister, and his father and his father before him were all fighters, in some quantifiable form. He struggles and thrashes, threatens to tear their throats out, casts a few spells and cantrips that forces someone to drop a dagger clattering to his sides. “Sedate him!” Someone shouts as he grabs the knife end of the dagger, wincing. Flipping the hilt to his palm, he sets to work severing the ropes. There are hands, grabbing at him, pushing him down and struggling to tear the dagger from his grip. Blood droplets splatter across Kravitz’s cheek as he forces his wrist free, uncaring of the well-being of whoever gets caught in his way. “Oh, for fuck's sake! You’re Necromancers, not incompetent—“ a woman, dusting her hands on the robes, fingertips, and eyes alight. She’s wearing a business suit underneath, which shouldn’t be as jarring as it is, but here we are.

Kravitz feels his body seize under control person, head mechanically falling. It's like he's sharing his soul with someone else crammed into what little space he had accidentally allowed, his skull pounding and limbs heavy. He obediently hands the woman the dagger. Tears fill up his eyes as he can only watch, wide-eyed, as she plunges it into his chest. Bare hands hold his body steady as others pull out tools, metal clamps to break his ribs and pry them open like a chest, his blood pouring, exploding, vision blurring and dark spots dancing in his vision. He watches from inside-- no, outside-- no, inside his body as they carve out his heart, pull it just high enough to send fresh pains shooting through from his head to his toes. His breaths come out in ragged, heaving things.

He screams, he knows, when Control Person finally drops. He screams himself hoarse through the blinding pain, and cries. For himself, for his legacy, for the songs he’ll never get to write, never get to hear played to an audience. And it’s ironic, he would have thought, had his mind been capable of anything beyond the agony, that a bloodline dedicated to the Raven Queen ends with a necromantic ritual. The edges of his vision blur and blink out as they pull his heart sharply from his body, and he can’t breathe, hears the ocean roaring in his ears over the chatter.

Then it ends.

And Kravitz comes into himself screaming, energy shooting out of him wildly. His trembling hands, or what he recognizes as intended to be his hands, pat desperately over his heart. He’s no longer in the cave, but this isn’t familiar, this isn’t _home_. This is a throne room, dark with starlight filtering through a stained glass window, and he still can’t breathe. Hands caress him, gently nudge him back into a solid form that wasn’t just arcane energy gone uncheck until he can hear his hyperventilating breath in his ears. A woman shushes him, eyes twisted in sympathy and donning a raven shaped helmet. She is aglow in a golden light that, if he didn’t know any better, Kravitz would say was coming from him. “You’re safe. _Kravitz._ You’re safe. Take deep breaths, my child. ” 

“What— where—I—“

“I will explain once you have calmed yourself .” The raven shaped helmet is abandoned, along with her other gauntlet, in favor of pressing both of her hands over his chest, still heaving with shuddering breaths. They stay like this until Kravitz can breathe without shaking, can focus on the elf woman with rich brown skin like his without wanting to pass out. She is a tether, frayed and hanging onto the ship that makes Kravitz with hope and hope alone. “Good,” she says, and her golden eyes shine with unshed tears. “Good.”

And Kravitz knows where he is. He _knows_ , and he knows _her_. “I’m dead." The woman nods and he rises to his feet shakily, head held high, and says, “I need to go back.”

“You can’t.”

“With all due respect, my Queen, I _can_. There’s so much I’ve yet to do, true, but you and I both know that any attempts I could make for your pity are wasted. I can serve you better in life than I can in death, and that is worth any pleas I could give.” This is uncharted territory, but he knows this, knows bargaining, knows being _right_. Even though he should be shitting himself at the sight of the Raven Queen, he feels nothing but the adrenaline coursing through his veins. “Here’s my offer. You play me in a game of cards. You win, and I go into the Astral Sea with the rest of my family. I win, you let me go back and kill those sons of bitches. Take it or leave it, but I'm not going without a fight.”

The Raven Queen tilts her head, face impassive. With a sigh, she pulls herself up to her full height, brushing off her pants. She gestures to a table that wasn’t there before, with a pile of cards in the center. 

The outcome is simple, known to you already. Kravitz wins, because there was no other possibility in his eyes, and the Raven Queen loses, though she doesn’t kid either of them; her heart was never in the game. Regardless of whether fate had a hand in this part of the story, her fondness of Kravitz was her own, known not to the tapestries Istus weaves. Deals with the Raven Queen are sealed with a handshake, drawn out long enough to give her time to say, “this can only happen if you surrender your services to me in life and beyond. Will you do still accept knowing this?” 

And Kravitz says, “take my memory of this, of the dying. The knowing is enough, but I can’t… i’d be joining your ranks sooner if I had to live the remainder of my life reliving a death no mortal should endure. I know the ball is in your court when and if I die, but I…” When the necromancers had torn his heart from his chest, he had tried to speak, tried to beg for them to stop, but his lips wouldn’t obey. He just kept screaming and screaming. He doesn't know if he's stopped screaming yet. “Please, just take it from me, and I’ll do whatever you want me to.”

She swoops down, close enough that he can see the finer details of the feathers that dot her cheeks like freckles, could trace the lines in her irises if he put his mind to it. She presses a kiss to his temple, gentle and sweet, sending electricity shooting through his bones. His eyes burn, and he blinks away tears, only to see the top of the cave again. He glances down to his chest and finds it still gaping open. His lungs are paralyzed and he makes no inhale of shock. The necromancers are gathered in a circle, his heart in the center, their hands linked as they channel their magic into an incantation. A portal begins to form in the center. It's too small to be significant, just enough for dread to settle in his undead bones.

There is a raven with golden eyes that sits on one of the lamps, watching him.

Kravitz gets up. He grabs the knife they used to cut him open. Some of the cultists look up and see Kravitz, pale and gaunt with eyes golden like flames to match the fury in his snarl. The others see the Raven, impassive and unblinking.

It’s instinct, from there. Kravitz knows it isn’t his— he was never built for murder, tenderness composing his soul. His fights were always protests lining the street, fist raised and throat raw from chanting. But he lets it become him, as he plunges the dagger through chests and necks, spinning and dancing around the room. Behind him, the Raven tears out throats and digs its claws into eyes, letting out shrill laughter that only a fool would mistake for a caw. 

By the end, Kravitz is the one who kills the woman that stole his heart. She dies like the rest. Screaming. 

In the eerie silence that follows, Kravitz stares numbly at the ground, then to the Raven, as it grows and distorts into the shape of the Raven Queen. Blood drips from her lips and clawed gauntlets as she approaches, heart in hand. “You did well, my child, ” she says, and her pride is felt in Kravitz alongside his confusion, his fear. Her eyes shine with emotion that Kravitz would describe as mournful if the Raven Queen was capable of such. Only, no, she is. There, nestled in her own heart, is a grief that would incapacitate a normal mortal, cumbersome and weighty. Kravitz pushes from this, returns to the emotions she _wants_ him to feel. Her eyes shine with sympathy. A bloodied, gauntleted hand draws a raven feathered cloak off of her shoulders and around his, while the other pushes his heart back into his chest and idly wills his body to repair. _“_ May your second chance at life be more fruitful than the first. ”

And then Kravitz is taking gulping breaths of air, hands trembling as he takes in the sight of the necromancers, dead at his feet. This Kravitz doesn’t remember the Raven Queen’s well-wishes, her oh so human emotions, but he feels an echo of them in his own sorrow. He presses a hand to his chest, where a raw, angry scar rests, and turns his head up.

This part of the story, you know.

A raven with golden eyes watches him. Kravitz evens out his breath at the sight of it, an exhausted sort of calm settling upon his shoulders. His hands tremble where they hold the blade, and he drops it to the ground, taking in a sharp breath at the sight of blood staining his arms, his chest. He doesn’t know where he is, who the necromancers are, but he’s settled on figuring the first part out. The second...well, way he sees it, some things are better left alone.

When it takes flight out of the cave, he follows.

This part of the story was meant to be known.

This was the part that wasn’t—

—cold, digging into his skin as he screams, helpless to move even as cold hands try to soothe him. The soothing had worked once but never again, he needs out, needs to see _him_ to know that everything is alright—

—he remembers everything, now that the curtain has fallen, and _God_ he wishes he hadn’t. It was one thing to know that he had asked to not remember in the first place, another to remember the _why_. The hands drop from his face, leaving him to draw his knees to his chest and look around the room warily. It’s disorienting, being dropped back from a flashback to a memory he hadn’t known of until now. He half expects to see Taako, like his mindless muttering summoned him into existence. Kravitz is only half disappointed to instead see the Raven Queen. They’re in the room she set aside for him, so long ago. The bed is comfortable underneath him, enough so that it’s uncomfortable, in a sense. The blankets are cold, but any warmth is warmth enough for Kravitz by now.

“You died from hypothermia and frostbite,” she says, and it’s a fact, spoken without inflection. The exhaustion that leaves his body limp isn’t his own, from the way that she rubs at her eyes. “How...how are you, Kravitz?”

“Uh. Honestly? I’d really like my boyfriend right about now, but you probably figured that out. _Fuck_ , does he even count as my boyfriend?” He coughs, ignores the way his entire body shivers in the cold and his teeth rattle. His heart no longer beats in his chest, and that’s something he can’t deal with right now. “That’s not important. What’s the date?”

She blinks at him. Vanishes, just for a moment, and returns with her head tilted to the side. “It has been two weeks since you died. It took… a lot of time to stabilize you.” They wince in unison. Shit. Kravitz has been baking on his death being a quick-over-and-done-with scenario so he could tell everyone what was up, what the whole plan was here on out. He was planning on telling _Taako_ what the plan was with the whole, you know. Death cop shit. He just never found the time. Guess he’ll have to find a way around the situation. “You delayed our chat quite a bit.”

“Yeah I _know_ ,” he says, miserable. “Can we get a fire in here? Is the Astral plane capable of being warm? Or maybe just some tea?”

The Raven Queen stares at him, unblinking. 

“...right, okay, I’ll figure it out later.” Pulling the blankets tighter around his shoulders, “lay it on me.”

“You are compromised in this case, nevertheless I will pass it onto you to bring in Lup and Barry Bluejeans. They will be transferred to the Eternal Stockade for eternity, and their accomplices will be granted immunity under—“

“—Yeah, no, not going to work.” Kravitz sneezes. Then he smiles, all teeth. It’s an echo of his first death, shoulders squared with confidence. “Here’s what we’re going to do.”

**✧**

Good people don’t become liches without reason. Or they didn’t, not before, when the term was known, and they don’t know now when only two walk the planet.

Kravitz isn’t stupid, he knows he’s taking a gamble with his first case. But they’re _good people_. The necromancers that took his heart, that watched with apathy as he died? They weren’t. It doesn’t help much that they wouldn’t have even _known_ that they were liches in any definitive sense, that Kravitz didn’t even know what the word meant until two months ago. 

So he throws himself headfirst into the training the Raven Queen sets aside for him until the days blur. The instincts that come with being a reaper are easy, but there’s a way of thinking that isn’t so easily taken on, a way to block yourself from the memories that leave your form unstable. 

The first time that Kravitz can think about his deaths while maintaining a steady form, the Raven Queen smiles and tells him that he’s ready. She gives instructions on how to tear a rift directly through the Astral and bypass the Ethereal plane directly into the Prime Material plane. It’s not enough for him to be a fully formed reaper, but just enough to satisfy their respective anxieties.

He winces as his bones creak under the sudden heat that blasts at him through the rift, blinking until he can see Lup and Barry’s room with clarity. Lup’s already awake, staring at him with wide eyes, mouth open like she’s half a second away from calling Taako. He doesn't blame her, given the amount of time he's been gone. “Don’t,” Kravitz manages, glancing over his shoulder. The door is cracked, but he can hear Taako snoring from the room over. Clearing his throat, “by order of the Raven Queen, you are to surrender yourself over to her benevolent custody for your trial.”

Barry shifts awake, adjusting his glasses. “Wha— trial? Kravitz? When the hell did you get back, bud?”

He bites his cheek to keep back a smile. For all of his training, it’s still hard not to feel _something_ at the realization that they never considered him to be an enemy once he died. “Just now. Look, I can’t promise you anything, but I think I’ve got a solid case for you two.” He holds out his hand to them, adjusting the scythe in his hand. The rift roars behind him. “Do you trust me?”

Lup’s eyes are fire, intense as an inferno. It’s a different determination from Taako, a mere reflection of the same grit. That’s where the similarities end, besides them being identical. Lup’s lips crack with a grin, wicked and wild, and her hand is crackling with a field of necrotic energy when she takes his. He couldn’t feel it when he was alive, but now that he isn’t, it just itches. The way the Ordinances spoke of it, he’d always thought it would hurt. “Let’s do this,” she says, and then the three of them are stumbling through the portal. 

**✧**

Taako doesn’t trust him, Kravitz can tell, but that’s alright. He knows he’ll win this case, one way or another, and then they’ll have all the time in the world to talk it out.

**✧**

The first thing Kravitz does when he shows up at Taako’s apartment is find their space heater. Taako lets go of his hands with a snort at the determined look in his eyes, like that’s all he needs to know. And maybe it is. “It’s in the hall closet, last I saw,” he helpfully says.

“Yeah, I kinda figured!” Kravitz calls back, smiling wide. He’d never had use for the space heater, before, but he’d noticed it the last time he was here. According to Lup, the power went out for a month, once, and Davenport went a little apeshit. They haven't used it since.

“Uh,” Carey says, watching curiously as Kravitz rummages through the hall closet. He spies the top of it under an absurd amount of blankets and almost weeps with joy. He hauls it out of the closet with a sharp yank. “Aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

“I am,” Kravitz says, nonplussed. He squints around the living room, then down the hall. “Babe, where’s an outlet I can plug this into?”

“There was an electric fire, you really shouldn’t—”

“—under my desk. C’mon, I’ll show you.” Kravitz shivers violently, cold stinging at his skin. He curses Istus and the Raven Queen for letting him die cold and hugs himself tight. Taako swoops in for the blankets from the hall closet and saunters down the hall. Shouting over his shoulder, “Fire wasn’t electrical. Trust me!” 

Lup and Barry are in the kitchen, currently offering the gathered firefighters bowls of cereal. The remnants of a microwave are scattered around the tile, stubbornly ignored by the former. “Hey, Kravitz,” they chime, in unison. Taako backpedals. Looks at the firefighters. Looks at the cereal. Lup holds out the bowl to him. The firefighters look tired.

“You guys can go home,” Taako says, slurping the milk obnoxiously. “Fire was started by an outburst of uncontrolled arcane energy. Happens when you’re experimenting.”

“No one ‘experiments’ at three in the—“

“—he does.” Kravitz, at least, doesn’t have to fake the long-suffering look he points at the firemen, and neither do Lup and Barry. It was never an issue between them, the whole ‘I’m going to finish my ungodly work and nothing can stop me’ attitude Taako adopted. Still, a man can hope for his boyfriend to get some fucking sleep every once in a while, right?

With the cereal in hand, Taako continues his march through the hallway, slamming open his bedroom door with grandeur, before quickly scrambling to kick his clothes into his closet. It’s practically a war zone, with hats and jewelry hanging from every available surface and equations written on burger wrappers, the window (in dry-erase marker, of course), and even his lampshade. Kravitz would almost be impressed if he wasn’t confused as to how he managed to do all of that in a month. A pair of underwear flies past Kravitz’s face, and then, magically, half the room is cleaned. 

Or, rather, Taako had dumped all of the trash in his wastebasket and mage-handed his clothes into whatever discrete place he could find. Kravitz would almost be laughing at his desperation if he didn’t feel so damn guilty about him being the probable cause, because… well. You know. The space heater is manhandled into place and promptly plugged in. Then, Taako takes a long, critical look at Kravitz before saying, “are those clothes real?” Which is honestly not a question Kravitz is mentally or emotionally prepared to process, and he says as much. “Fuck, okay, that’s valid. I’ve got clean PJ pants in my dresser, you’re getting in this bed with me and I’m not taking criticism.”

It’s not even funny, really, and Kravitz can chalk it up to him not being in the outside world for weeks but the core of the matter is that he _missed_ this. Even when he wasn’t anything beyond a soul he was missing Taako, missing how easy it always was to be with him. And sure, part of the missing was worry over him being the one to find his body (he was smiling, his corpse, and somehow that unnerved him more than the gaps in his memory between the freezing and his death), but. Fuck, he just missed Taako, okay? So he laughs, snorting and giggling to himself as he rummages for Taako’s banana yellow pants. 

Something in him settles when he glances over his shoulder, shirt and raven feather cloak folded on the desk, and sees Taako smiling at him, now perched on the edge of his bed. He looks content in a way that Taako rarely was, just happy to _be_. Before, he was rushing to become _someone_ worth being, as if he wasn't already there. Despite all that his death took from them, he'd gladly give them away again if it meant he could see Taako like this. “How is everyone?” He asks, and that smile shifts. Warmth floods Kravitz as the space heater finally kicks it into high gear, enough to subside the shuddering. “I uh… I left letters, for everyone that probably needed them. I don’t know if Johann got to giving them all out yet.”

Taako’s face is scrunched up in concentration as he squirms under the covers and lifts them to invite Kravitz in, eyes shooting all around the room. “Family was getting kind of bummed you didn’t show back up like, the next day, but I’m pretty sure they were just worried I was going to snap. Uh. I haven’t been back to the Davy Lamp, but Ren says everyone’s been filled in on your situation.” The blankets come down to engulf them in relative darkness, because Reapers apparently get dark vision. Who'da thunk. He makes a face at Taako just to hear him snort. “You’re, like, good, though, right? I mean you look fine, but also I also get the feeling that you’re not, So. No pressure, but I’m here.”

Kravitz chews the inside of his cheek. Logically, he knows he breaks the flesh the more he worries it, but the taste of copper never comes. It’s disappointing, almost, in a way that he can’t properly put into words. Like this small part of his humanity meant the world, and now that it’s gone, he doesn’t know what to do. Like his death took more than it gave. “I don’t… I never meant to leave you for so long. You know that, right?”

“‘Course I do.” Spoken as an exhale, eyes distant and foggy in a way that clenches Kravitz’s heart. 

“Taako. Look at me.” He does, with a little gentle coaxing. “I didn’t have a physical form for two weeks. The way that I died… I wasn’t in my right mind, up until the very end, and by the time I _was \_ , all that I could think about was the fact that you were going to go looking for me, and all of my memories from the last time I died came back and… It took a while, for her to calm my soul down enough for her to get through to me.”

There’s a vulnerability to Taako, when the cogs in his mind start to turn, making his connections to the unknowns of his time spent alone. His body sags, looking more tired than he’s ever been, and two burning hot hands trail down the scar across his chest. “I know,” he says, in a hushed whisper. “I just—” an exhale of breath. “You were _alone_.”

A memory of his Queen’s emotions bleeding into his, their grief upon the sight of Taako stumbling out of the cave, hyperventilating as he falls into Merle’s waiting arms. It was the first time Kravitz had seen him break, and he wasn’t even there to help.

Taako shivers when Kravitz brushes a hand over his jaw but says nothing about the chill of his skin. “I was,” Kravitz says. “And if I had a choice, I would have kept it that way. You’re going to do amazing things, things that wouldn’t be possible if you’d managed to go after me. I’ve already done the few things I set out to do when my grandparents died.”

“That’s depressing as hell, Krav. You know that, right?”

“‘S part of the occupation.”

And they talk, after that, after the sounds of people wandering through the apartment fade and the distant hum of Lup and Barry watching the television filter down the hall. Kravitz doesn’t tell Taako about his deaths, either of them, nor does Taako speak about the boxes of Kravitz’s stuff that are piled in the corner of his room. It’s a conversation for conversation’s sake, the longing of two halves of a whole that spent far longer than necessary apart, even if the gods had willed it. 

Kravitz doesn’t sleep, but he does close his eyes after Taako falls into a half trance, reveling in the sensation of being, of living in any way that a dead man could. “I’ve got to go see Istus, tomorrow,” Taako mumbles, low enough that Kravitz isn’t even sure he’s meant to hear it. If he’s speaking under the assumption that Kravitz is still capable of sleep. He prods Kravitz’s arm until he opens an eye, which, alright, guess he _is_ speaking to awake boy Kravitz. “I’ve gotta see Istus tomorrow,” he repeats, looming over him. “‘cause I admitted to myself that you’re like, incapable of doing anything bad or _whatever_. It doesn’t matter. You wanna come with me?”

“...Am I allowed to ask why, or—”

“—One, I want you to come because I love you, you absolute shit, and two, I’ve got a feeling that you _have_ to be there, which definitely means Istus put you in that dumb tapestry she’s got.” Taako scowls at Kravitz’s forehead like he’s trying to pretend to look him in the eyes and failing spectacularly. “Which, fuck if I know why, dumb and dumber and I should be all she needs.”

Kravitz smiles, adjusting Taako’s face until they’re looking at each other. “I love you too,” he says, biting his cheek to keep back a smile. “But think about it. Who do I work for?”

Taako swings himself up and over, straddling Kravitz’s hips with relative ease. It’s the easiest thing in the world for Kravitz to plant his hands on his waist like he was made only to hold Taako. “RQ, duh.”

“Uh-huh. And what do the Raven Queen and Istus have in common?” Taako blinks at him, brows furrowed. You could hear the cogs in his brain turning as he thinks, until everything bursts and he burrows his head into his hands, groaning.

“They’re dating.” He laughs, unbeating heart full as Taako throws his head back and curses to the ceiling. “How the _fuck_ did I forget that? How did I forget our bosses are sucking face? I'm so fucking stupid. Stop laughing at me Krav, this isn’t funny.”

“It’s pretty funny.” 

And if Taako takes his pillow and smushes it against his face to get him to stop laughing, then, well. He kinda deserved it.

**✧**

It is often said that when a door closes, another opens. 

Kravitz finds that this isn’t exactly the case; doors close behind him, certainly, but the ones that open are always different in shape, in grain, in carvings. No single exit is the same, and as such, no entrance is all the more equal. 

He comes back into Taako’s life as a half-person still malleable under his lover’s hands. Lup and Barry— well, his entrance is their exit, a rift torn through the planes by a glinting scythe, beckoning them for their eternal service. These entrances are gentle, they’re smooth waves crashing against the sand on a hot summer night, they’re birds chirping in the dead of winter and deer grazing. They are love songs, gentle symphonies made by a gentler soul that had no loss to toss out into the world to burden others, played on lyres and violins and pianos. 

The entrance to Taako’s life is a return home.

The same cannot be said for the rest of Taako’s family. 

They decide to wait, of course, and a being inside of Kravitz that is not him soothes his nerves when they finally decide to make their way to Merle’s apartment, a full hour after Magnus had texted Barry to tell them they’d arrived. Taako rubs circles into his back, half-pressed against him to keep the chill that can never seem to be kept at bay. Lup knocks on the door.

And the door opens.

Lucretia takes one look at Kravitz and slams the door in their faces. “Don’t be a dick!” Lup shouts at the closed door. It opens again, and a knife is pointed to his throat. It wouldn’t do much, but it seems to make her feel better, so he doesn’t say anything. 

“Where were you,” she demands.

“Everywhere,” Kravitz whispers. He shivers from the cold. “Nowhere.”

She takes this as an acceptable answer and lets them inside.

Davenport drops a plate on the floor, cursing. He doesn’t approach Kravitz, but there is something steeled behind his eyes. A fire, burning for whatever wrongs he may have caused in his absence, and may never repair.

Angus cries, exactly as Taako had warned him. Apparently, he wasn’t used to the dead coming back, and especially wasn’t used to the dead coming back without their glasses.

Merle has fury written across the very details of his face, and Kravitz can’t bring himself to be surprised when he gets a swift punch in the gut. Despite the fact that Kravitz doesn't exactly have to breathe, it knocks the wind out of him. “Don’t,” He says weakly to Taako when he tries to intervene. “I deserved that, probably.”

Magnus doesn’t try to fight him, unsurprisingly, righting him when Merle goes grumbling off to the kitchen, one calloused, large hand on either of his shoulders. His expression is solemn, asking the questions that he could never bring himself to say out loud, for that would will them into existence. Kravitz smiles. “The Raven Queen is many things, but heartless is not one of them.” To the room, “Lup and Barry have been given the same deal I was given. When they die, they’ll be joining her retinue officially. Unofficially, in a year’s time, they will be sent for jobs I otherwise can not complete.

There would be cheering, on any other day. If it were any other person bearing the news. Satisfied, Magnus lets Julia shove him aside to fuss over Kravitz. “It should have been me,” she murmurs, wincing at the chill of his skin. Her eyes are wet with unshed tears. Kravitz takes her hands in his and tries his best to sound reassuring when he tells her it had to happen. She shakes her head, unconvinced. “It should have been me.”

These exits are sloppy, ungraceful, and intense. Carved from wood by an expert hand that shakes and trembles the whole way through, and decides at the last minute to tear off the frame. Barry had said that it was going to be like ripping off a bandaid. Barry, of course, did not have experience in showing up to your partner’s family meeting weeks after your death when the absence had done all of the damage for you. Kravitz didn’t either, so, really, what was he expecting?

Lup manages to get the peace back while Taako drags Kravitz over to Angus for the world’s longest hug, with constant reassurances that he wouldn’t be dying again as a bonus. Merle still seems pissed, but Davenport somehow managed to bury the hatchet in the ten minutes it took for Angus to stop crying. “Now,” Lup announces, “I suppose you’ve wondered why we’ve gathered you all here.”

“Not to join the Fantasy Avenger’s Initiative, that’s for fucking sure,” Merle grumbles from his perch on the couch arm. Lucretia pinches his flesh arm.

“Haha, very funny Merle. You’re a real comedian.” Taako unfolds his arms, revealing a paper list crumpled in his right hand. He presents it to his family, careful to not show Kravitz. “I got the last item. We’ve got to go talk to the big man. She wants Krav to come.”

“Uh.” Magnus points to Kravitz. “Should he even be here when we’ve got the list out?”

“What’s he gonna do, snitch?”

“Yes…?” 

“Why the _hell_ would you think I’d date a narc, Magnus? A demon possess your ass? Huh? Need me to get some cleansing sage and pray a little to get it out? Or are you just on crack? Because there are only two ways you can think that I, Taako, would date a fucking narc, and it’s demons or crack, so pick your poison, dude.” Taako gears up to continue, which wouldn’t be fun for anyone, so Kravitz puts an arm around his shoulder to stop him.

Then, because he’s not an animal, he says, “I’m also permanently banned from most establishments in Rockport for disrupting the peace. And your ride.” To make his point clear, he materializes his scythe and, with a brief reflection to the mere minutes he spent in Istus’s realm, tears a rift through the planes. When he turns back, Taako’s family is watching him with varying looks of confusion. “...is there something on my face?”

Taako, the only one unaffected, picks up his purse and stands on his toes to kiss Kravitz’s cheek in one swift motion. “Only me,” he says, sticking a heavily ringed hand through the rift and waggling his fingers. When it returns to his side untouched, “alright, I’m not down a hand a-la Fantasy Luke Skywalker, so I—“ he flips his sunglasses down to his face with a pinkie— “will be seeing you losers on the flip side. Boys, don’t forget to bring your toys.”

Kravitz follows through, the droning chorus of “yes, mother,” filtering past his ears like wisps of hair. He blinks against the harsh transition, not because his eyes needed to adjust but because his brain still seems to think that he’s alive, and people who are alive _should_ need to adjust. If the curses behind him are anything to go by, his mind was correct. 

Istus’s realm, now that Kravitz can truly see it (it took a while, between Taako and him, to realize that mortals aren’t meant to view the planes of gods the way they were intended, barring the Astral plane, and that sure explained a lot of shit about Merle), is...busy. There is no true ceiling, only thread-bare, translucent fabrics draped across the tops, held in place by shimmering silver rope. The walls and floors, still an elegant marble, are covered in handmade rugs and tapestries the closer they get to Istus’s sitting room. They depict battles, love stories, creations of life and gods and the nothing. The smell of jasmine is heavy in the air, and Kravitz feels warmer than he ever has since his death. “Love what you’ve done with the place, Is,” Taako calls out, hip checking the door to Istus’s sitting room with all the bravado he could muster, “really digging the homeless cave chic.”

It occurs to Kravitz, belatedly, that he’s never truly seen Istus before, and he begins to panic, before the woman sipping tea sets down her cup, sighs, and says, “God, I wish I could fire you.” But she’s smiling as she says it, her long white hair pushed elegantly from her face and eyes inviting. She wears a cable-knit cardigan and loungewear, knitting needles abandoned in favor of offering a wicked high five to Taako. “I mean, c’mon, man. First, you slack off on your job and then you diss my digs? What am I even paying you for?”

“You’re not!” Taako says gleefully, “this shits free courtesy of Taako!”

“It’s not free,” Merle grouses. He gives Istus a fist bump. “We’re paying for it each and every day we spend near him.” 

There’s a hot pink tricycle in the corner, for reasons Kravitz isn’t privy to. The price tag is still on it.

Magnus gives Istus a double low-five. “And that’s why we let Kravitz deal with him! Thank you, Kravitz. Oh, Istus, ma’am, did you want the lockpicks back? Because it’s totally fine if you-“

Istus waves dismissively. “Eh, keep them. I don’t need to break into anywhere anytime soon. Now,” turning to Kravitz with twinkling eyes, “it’s lovely to see you in person, Kravitz. We’ll have time to chat later, of course, but do you perchance know where that scoundrel of a woman you call your Queen is? She was supposed to be here half an hour ago.”

Kravitz’s first gut response is to tell her that no, he didn’t have a clue where the Raven Queen was at the moment, but he pauses. The logical part of Kravitz—which should be noted that, unlike Taako, Kravitz acknowledges on a daily basis— figures that he’s about fifty percent himself, fifty percent the Raven Queen. So, by that logic, he should be able to figure out how to phone her, so to speak. Easy, right?

Only, Kravitz doesn’t know where to begin doing that. His training as a reaper hasn’t even officially begun yet, let alone progressed far enough that he knows what he’s doing beyond the whole rift business. Despite this, he _does_ know the Raven Queen decently enough (spending every night drifting to her plane does do that to you), so he feels pretty confident when he says, “she’s on her way.”

As if on cue, a door opposite of Istus bursts open and in comes the Raven Queen, her mask absent and fancy garb traded for jeans and a graphic tee implying that she puts the ‘fun’ in ‘funeral’. Papers fly out of her hands, swiftly caught by the fourteen ravens flittering about. “ Slept through my alarm, ” she says, voice as harried as the rest of her. Istus scoffs fondly, gesturing to the steaming cup of tea in the seat across from her. “Oh, you’re a gift, my love. I would perish without you and your infinite patience. ”

While the Raven Queen inelegantly slurps down a seemingly infinite cup of tea, Istus waves them over to the four remaining empty seats at an adjacent table. They sit obediently. “Before you ask, no, Magnus, she doesn’t actually sleep. We gods have a sort of...dormant mode we slip into now and then. No, I will not tell you why. Now,” Istus takes a prim sip from her cup. “I’m sure the three of you are aware that I gave you a list of items, yes? Yes. And Kravitz, I’m sure your Queen would ask the same but she is… well, still drinking. Darling, please slow down, you’re worrying my emissaries.”

Cups appear in front of the four of them. Kravitz gleefully notes that his China cup is filled to the brim with hot chocolate. Taako shares a private little smile with him before promptly obliterating his milkshake.

The Raven Queen slams her cup down, quirks an elegant brow at Istus, before turning to Kravitz and saying, “I tire of this dancing she does with these poor fools, don’t you ?” Before he has a chance to respond, “Kravitz has been obtaining items similar to yours and vice versa for a month now, only… if I’m getting this right, only Taako fully knows why? ” 

Taako, with a rather _fantastic_ deer in the headlights impression, and, when he gets the hint that it’s his turn to speak, manages out, “to give them to you, she said. I think.”

The Raven Queen lifts her shoulders as if to say ‘see? Simple’. Istus kicks her under the table. “I wasn’t… entirely honest with you? No, listen. I _did_ give most of that shit to her because I love her and also, you know, one of those items _literally_ being her heart was kinda important, but. Uh. Fuck, okay, I’ll just say it,” Istus takes a sip of her tea, clears her throat, and says, “We’re kinda sorta getting married and we don’t have enough time to get the stuff for the wedding? So we just sent you guys.”

Magnus does a spit take. Taako and Merle begin coughing, pounding on their chests. The whole thing would be rather comical if Magnus hadn’t managed to spit his tea directly into Kravitz’s eyes.

Mercifully, Kravitz manages to remain mostly unaffected. Read: Mostly. It was never a surprise to him; most of his time spent speaking with the Raven Queen was almost entirely composed of a retelling of their love story. Only a fool would think they’d never tie the knot. “Congratulations,” he says, lowering his cup from his lips to wipe his eyes. “When’s the wedding?”

“We’re thinking of having a summer wedding? Rhea and Pan went a little batshit about decorations, so.” Istus shrugs. “You’re all invited, of course, and Lliira is willing to give the proper blessings to any mortals we deem worthy to attend. Specifically, Kravitz, I want your good southern friend. She gives off the vibe of someone who knows how to party.”

“You’ll love her,” Taako chimes in, “real ride or die girl. I heard she was the reason office chairs aren’t allowed in Water Deep anymore, but don’t quote me on that.”

Kravitz nods. “Oh, she is, but she insists she had nothing to do with the giant octopus, but the riot was all her.” 

“ _Really?_ Huh. Just when you think you know a guy…” 

Merle clears his throat. “I got a uh, question.” The Raven Queen gestures to him with a clawed hand, urging him on. “What the hell did Taako’s ‘truth’ or whatever that was— you never told us what that truth was, by the way— have to do with your wedding? And what the hell did Kravitz even _get_ if he beefed it?”

“Me ‘beefing it’ was the last item,” Kravitz says, watching with amusement as the spit take scenario repeats. Or, well, mostly amusement. The anger that overtakes Taako, just for a second, but long enough for Kravitz to notice? That hurts. “It was the only way to end the suffering at Hindermount Fortress, or so I was told.”

_“Fuck_ Hindermount Fortress,” Istus and Taako say in unison, as the Raven Queen nods in solemn agreement. Clearing her throat, “no, seriously, do you know how _hard_ it was to get someone strong enough to kill a Nightwalker into that fucking place without losing them to a whole other fucking plane? Kravitz only made it because he’s tethered to the Astral plane, so if he wasn't tethered to the Raven Queen we’d be fucked.”

The Raven Queen gestures to Istus. “Ah, I see,” Merle says, with the clarity of someone who does not, in fact, see. Kravitz gives him some points for giving up while he’s ahead, though. “Doesn’t explain the truth part of this shit, though.”

“Kravitz is horrible to be around when he’s sad and missing Taako. Taako, as I have swiftly discovered, is also stubborn as hell about keeping perceived notions of reality to himself.” The Raven Queen shrugs. “It’s only natural that Istus give him the ultimatum of introspection before his mortal tasks were complete. It doesn’t have much to do with our wedding, but…”

The silence that follows is thick enough with tension that Kravitz could cut it with a knife. Magnus and Merle drink their respective drinks as an excuse to avoid eye contact, and Taako glares at Istus with that same unfiltered anger. Istus holds up a box of cookies. Her smile wavers. “Biscuits?”

After an hour of awkward small talk that gives way to comfortable small talk (Taako, Kravitz has learned, can’t seem to stay mad at Istus for very long), Istus claps her hands together and says, “Alright, that’s all. Oh, wait, Magnus?” He pauses, halfway out of his chair already. “Do you _want_ to be an emissary?” And there’s something pointed in the way she says it that has Kravitz pausing. Her eyes are narrowed, glinting dangerously, but her smile is warm and understanding and… inviting, in a way that smiles only are with mothers. 

“I—” Magnus licks his lips. His eyes are blown wide with shock, and he speaks like he’s on the verge of tears. “—I get the choice?” Phrased in the way that someone has accepted their fate, has resigned themselves to an eternity. The Raven Queen smiles, then, and it’s a bittersweet thing, Kravitz knows. Her emotions overwhelm him, the overpowering urge to walk up and wrap him in his arms paired with the envy of someone who never got the option to choose their fate, the _why couldn’t it be me_? That is quickly pushed aside for reminders of all the good it has brought. When Istus nods, “I want to be with Julia.”

“Then you’ll be with Julia,” she says like it’s that simple. And maybe it is, maybe eternity could be peace for him, even if it isn’t for Kravitz, the first person to accept the inverse of Magnus’s choice. “All you had to do was ask, Magnus.”

And Kravitz feels for the way that Magnus’s shoulders slump and he exhales in relief, the way that all the stress of a future he didn’t want sets itself free like a bird from a cage. He feels tension drain from his own shoulders for being lucky enough to be in the same proximity of his warmth, the same way that Taako always lets his walls down in the safety of his own home. The rest of Istus’s Emissaries file out, and Kravitz moves to follow, hand in Taako’s, when a clawed hand snags his wrist. The Raven Queen isn’t looking at him, though. She’s looking at Taako, smiling sheepishly. “I need to borrow him,” she says, and Taako shakes his head, but lets his hand fall away anyway. Calling after him, “Don’t worry! You two have all the time in the world, now !”

From the way her many voices burst into cackling laughter, Kravitz doesn’t have to turn around to know that his boyfriend just flipped a goddess the bird. Istus pulls out a third chair at their table, even though it was very noticeably not there a few seconds ago, and all but man-handles him into it. “So,” she says, smiling with her teeth. “First, My love has something to tell you. I’ll get my hands on you, rest assured, but this is… important, to her.”

“Thank you for making it sound like I’m making to adopt him _,_ ” The Raven Queen says, exasperated, running her thumb absently over the back of Istus’s hand before taking both of Kravitz’s in her free hand. Her eyes burn with the intensity of molten gold. “ How much do they tell of my mortal life?”

He tells her; The scorned Raven Queen spent her life as a powerful ice sorceress, caught the attention of an old god, who raised her up, took her as her wife. She was powerful no longer, a tool for him to use, and so she set loose the souls he captured, helped them rise up to kill him and take her rightful place as the goddess of death. “Pretty close,” Istus says thoughtfully, but that’s all the commentary Kravitz manages out of either goddess. 

The Raven Queen hums, thoughtfully, her ice-cold hand tracing the lifelines etched into Kravitz’s palm. “When I killed Nerull, I erased my name from the minds of mortals, and took his, too. The world had no use worshipping a dead god, after all, and I was… changed. But the name that he _gave_ me—” she grits out ‘gave’ in the same way someone describes shit on shoes. “ —is still the only name I know. But it brings comfort to some when they can’t come to terms with their death, as you couldn’t. And you— you died in ways that even the strongest of mortals wouldn't bear, and you have done it twice. It is only fair, my child, that you know my name and the power it holds over me will be yours if you ever need it. ”

And Kravitz knows it, he does and has known from the moment he could remember dying the first time. She knows that he knows it, too, but it’s one thing to know a god’s true name and another to use it. So Kravitz covers her hand with his, takes a deep breath, and looks her in the eyes. “I don’t think I’d ever be able to see you as a Nera, my Queen.”

He doesn’t need a link to her emotions to know that something in what he said has her reeling. It’s written in the way that her eyes widen and her mouth falls open, the feathers that make up her hair ruffling and settling as she reins in her emotions. She smiles warmly, the sort that reaches her eyes and brings the tension from her shoulders, and says, “No, I didn’t think you could, Kravitz. ” 

Istus leans over to pinch her, smiling to her ears when the Raven Queen sighs indulgently and lets go of Kravitz’s hand. “Oh, fine, go ahead and ask him. You think it would kill you to wait. ”

And then Istus is in Kravitz’s face, now, braced against the table and still smiling. “I need your advice,” she says, whispering like it's some dirty grammar school secret. Glancing to the Raven Queen, “I heard from a little bird you’re good for it.”

  
They manage not to burst out into childish giggles over the pun, but only barely. “I’m good for it,” he confirms, squirming under Istus’s scrutiny as she studies his face, humming to herself. Whatever she finds has her making an interesting sound in the back of her throat. Her smile changes, almost minutely, into a predator’s. She sheds the motherly aura like a skin, looking more and more like the memory of a Taako from years ago, stalking through a kitchen in search of a killer. 

Her voice is sly, too, as she whispers from across the table, her words echoing through the room like a final judgment. There is a tapestry, hanging on a loom visible a room over that unweaves itself expertly, a spectral hand lifting the bonds and inspecting them closely. Kravitz thinks it could be Istus, or this realm is her, and the living deity asking for advice is a projection to satisfy his presumptions of what Istus should look like. 

Kravitz nods as she speaks into his ear, solemn, and when she leans back and cocks a brow at him in waiting, he tilts his head as he considers her words.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Kravitz says.

And then he matches her smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, folks!!! I meant to upload this on Friday but uh,,, I got Animal Crossing,,, and it sorta derailed from there,,,,  
> This chapter has been pre-written for some time and let me tell you, writing Kravitz's first death was downright CATHARTIC. It was one of the few things that stayed the same from the planning to the actual writing and I had this fic planned out for about a year around now, so it's been PAINFUL sitting on it lmao
> 
> We're in the endgame now tho! The plan is still to finish with the next chapter, and then we'll see what comes next ;)


	10. It's Been Six Months/a Year Since I Lost My Dear Boyfriend Kravitz... Sometimes I Can Still Hear His Voice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Lup said you’d be fine with it, but she was also setting legal papers on fire at the same time and also doesn’t live with you anymore, so I’m not sure I trust her judgment right now.”  
> 
> 
> Kravitz blinks. “She burned them without me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Any scenes with istus/The Raven Queen's wedding happened six months after hindermount; all other events are some time past the year mark. It's not exactly vital to know this, but it does make certain developments more sensible.

Taako isn’t really one for weddings. Between him and Lup, it’s pretty safe to say it’s just a them thing; her “wedding” was a fancy dinner with family after a courthouse legalization of their union, and before that the only wedding he can remember liking was Magnus and Julia’s. That’s not to say he doesn’t enjoy a good party, because he does, but weddings just… okay. He doesn’t like to think about his birth family often,  _ obviously _ , but anyone who’s known him long enough knows that they were rich bastards and proud of it. When Lup and he were kids, they’d gone to the wedding of some cousin or another, and while he had an appreciation for the finer detail, there was no  _ life  _ to any of it.

That being said, he doesn’t know why he ever doubted that Istus and the Raven Queen would have a wedding that was anywhere  _ near  _ boring. Sure, he spent the entire ceremony confused out of his goddamn mind and/or mentally checked out, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was bored. The brides had taken sips from the Chalice of Many Horrors as a testament to their dedication or some shit.

Anyway. Taako sat through the ceremony without yawning once, so here he is now, leaning against a bar with a drink in hand as the reception goes into full swing. It's not that he doesn’t want to dance— he does, absolutely, it’s just…

Well, Pan was dirty dancing somewhere in the crowd of gods and no one wants to see that. Except maybe Merle. Also, Taako won’t be caught dead embarrassing himself on the dance floor in front of the powers that be. But mostly it was just Pan.

Kravitz and Ren are in the epicenter of the dance floor, drunkenly trying to learn a dance Rhea had created. When Kravitz dips Ren without warning, she lets out a startled yelp, before dissolving into wheezy laughter. Kravitz laughs with her, his eyes crinkling at the edge as he does so. It’s captivating, in a way that most people just can’t seem to be, to watch someone be so  _ happy  _ without any other reason than enjoying someone’s company. Like the world could end and he’d still be smiling, so long as he had someone he loved close at hand.

“I’m glad you let him back in.” He sees Lucretia sidle up next to him at the bar, martini in hand, and inclines his head to catch her wistful smile. “I know Istus will say it’s her work, but I don’t believe her. You could have shut him out, and he would have let you.”

Taako snorts, and fiddles with the hot pink drink umbrella. “Yeah, well.” He shrugs, watching the ice shift. “We’ve got eternity, now. No point in wasting it, right?”

Her eyes go distant as she sets down her empty glass, still trained on Ren. “...Right.” Lucretia turns half of her body until she’s facing Taako, face set in determination. “Taako I—“

“—oh, fuck, before I forget—“

A beat, in which the two of them awkwardly shuffle their feet and shake their glasses.

“Sorry, you go—”

“—No, you—”

“—Okay, let’s just—”

Taako opens his purse and thrusts a worn, dog-eared romance novel into Lucretia’s chest before this  _ bullshit  _ could go on any further. She blinks down at the cover owlishly, and he can practically see the lightbulb going off in her head as she says, “It took you half a year to finish it?”

“I got a  _ little  _ preoccupied, Luc. Not much time to read between the whole emissary shit and getting my master’s.” In fact, he didn’t have much time  _ after  _ the emissary shit, when all he had to worry about was graduating. Taking up Kravitz’s shifts at the Davy Lamp while they found a replacement ate up about any free time he might’ve had outside of class, too, so he’d only just managed to find the time. “Also, this book sorta fucking  _ ruined  _ me, so forgive me for needing a week or two to cope.”

“Yeah.” Lucretia gestures over Eilistraee for another drink. “I just can’t believe the author killed off Daniel like that.”

“ _ You  _ can’t believe it? Darling, I lived it! From that point forward I was Vivian, not knowing whether the ghost of my dead lover was real or a hallucination, and let me tell you, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.” Taako snags the glass Eilistraee pushes across the counter, downing a quarter of it before he passes it off to a glowering Lucretia. “I’d rate it a solid six out of ten.”

She lifts her drink to her lips, brows raised like she’s going to respond, when a distant crash sounds. They turn back to the dance floor just in time to see Kravitz laughing up at a now-broken glass ceiling and a very absent Ren. Sighing, she tucks the book under her arm. “I guess that’s my cue to leave. I’ll find you later, Taako.”

With that, she vanishes into the crowd in search of Ren.

Taako tears his eyes away from Kravitz long enough to spot Istus, still sitting at the head table. She meets his eye with a blinding smile, and gestures to her centerpiece; the last living plant of Miller Labs, carefully stowed in a gold and white vase that Taako vaguely recognizes as his handiwork. The Raven Queen, once seated at her side, is now in the space Lucretia left, halfway over the bar and grabbing as many bottles as she can while Eilistraee’s back is turned. She hands a bottle of wine to Taako without looking up. Under the lanterns overhead, the sapphires decorating her Raven-shaped helmet glimmer. The wine fits perfectly in his bag.

When he blinks, the Raven Queen is back at the head table, drinking from what is most definitely not a tall glass of water. They lift their glasses up to each other in solidarity, sharing a brief, private smile. It’s the closest thing they’ve had to a civil conversation, ever since the meeting they had in Istus’s realm. Taako thinks that she’s needlessly cruel, more so than Istus, and that her rules are too iron-tight to let creative minds exist. She thinks that he’s a bad influence on Kravitz’s judgment. Kravitz, however, is only interested in apprehending Necromancers and restoring order and has claimed himself as a neutral party in this ongoing argument.

But they have eternity to hash it out, so they’ve decided to let sleeping dogs lie for now.

Taako weaves into the crowd of gods and goddesses and spirits expertly, glass abandoned on the bar. It’s not hard to find Kravitz— he’s in the middle of arguing with a ghost of someone’s grandma. It's even easier to slip his hand around his waist and lean in close. “What the hell did you do to Ren?” He asks, reveling in the way he shivers at the sound of his voice. 

With a scoff, Kravitz turns from the grandma, effectively ignoring her. Any frustration melts at the sight of him and, while Taako doesn’t want to sound cheesy, the thought of being Kravitz’s anchor does things to him. His eyes crinkle around the edges as he smiles, gesturing wordlessly in the direction of the cake. 

There, clambering in through the window with an armful of struggling cats is Ren. Lucretia is nowhere to be seen, but Lup and Barry are close at her heel, flushed red and their clothes all out of sorts. Ren hands them each a cat, nonplussed by their current states, before wandering off. “I don’t know how she found them, but she’s fully intent on keeping one,” Kravitz helpfully supplies. “No clue why she got the others.”

“I’m more worried about the fact that my sister and her husband were boning in the celestial plane if I’m going to be honest with you.” Glancing to one another, they push through to the other side of the dancefloor. Kravitz spins out of the way of Tempus’s rather daring Scottish jig, while Taako barely manages to dodge an elbow to the face from Morthammer Duin. Flailing blindly, he grabs onto the edge of Kravitz’s cloak and holds it until they’re by Lup and Barry. 

“These cats have sharp teeth and glowing eyes,” Barry says, unprompted. The orange tabby in his arms knocks his glasses askew with a tiny, adorable paw. When he looks up to meet their gaze, there are tears in his eyes. “I think I love them.”

“Babe, you say that every time you see something that shouldn’t exist.”

Fifteen Ravens scratch their beaks against plates across the room. It’s grating, pulsing through the tables and up Taako’s legs until his very bones vibrate and his ears ache. He clasps his hands over his ears until the sensation fades, and the rest of the room follows suit. The only one unaffected, seemingly, is The Raven Queen. She stands at attention behind the head table, elegantly sipping from a goblet that is, presumably, still filled to the brim with vodka. She waits, her head cocked until the music fades. Magnus and Julia have paused what appears to be a competitive drinking game in the back of the room, still holding Merle up while he does a kegstand. They all blink owlishly at the brides. “Clear the dance floor,” she says, slamming her glass back down onto the table and extending a clawed hand to Istus. “I do believe it's high time for my wife and me to join the merriment.”

Istus laughs, dimples deep in her cheeks and eyes crinkling around the edges, and though it still manages to unsettle Taako, he feels… happy for her. He doesn’t know much of her as a person, other than she’s witty enough to match him, but for a god to find enough joy that she’s confident it will last for eternity? That’s something precious, something to be held close and celebrated the same as a war won.

As Istus takes her wife’s hand and allows herself to be led to the dance floor, Lup wordlessly passes a fluffy black cat to Taako. It latches onto his hand and refuses to give it back to him. “Kravitz,” The Raven Queen says. He snaps to attention at Taako’s side, relaxing only when she smiles at him. “That song you composed, the last one from the night we met again. Will you play it for me?”

That must mean  _ something  _ to Kravitz, if only for the way that he smiles wide enough to warm even the coldest of hearts and his eyes glisten. He leaves Taako without so much as a backward glance on his way to the now-vacated band’s stage. He adjusts his cufflinks, lifts a viola from its stand, and rests it against his chin. 

And for the first time in six months, Kravitz plays his symphony to an audience. 

**✧**

There is a house in the outer end of Neverwinter. It has two stories, with a row of plants on each window; the kitchen has herbs all but spilling out of its planter. The owners had purchased it five months ago, to “get domestic and shit”, according to their realtor, who would quit immediately after they got into escrow. The garage is small, with the windows taped up. Inside is a rack of bicycles and a moped pushed against a wall, and lab equipment takes up the rest of the space. The entrance is crowded, scarves and coats and shoes scattered on any available surface or hook. On the second floor, accessible by a staircase immediately to the right of the entrance, are two bedrooms and an office that was seemingly once used for its intended purpose. Now, though, it boasts an upright piano and an array of string instruments, and the desk is covered in sheet music.

A cat meows, back downstairs, and the tranquil silence of an otherwise empty house is broken. The cat stands at the back door, fluffy tail swishing, swatting at a fly against the glass. The Fantasy Bachelor plays on a muted TV, and a blue hand reaches down for a glass of wine. “Agnes, do we have to do this every night?” Taako asks without looking away from what has to be the worst lab report anyone has ever turned in to him. He squints, scoffs, and takes a long sip from his glass. “Can’t we just be quiet, or maybe you can catch the fucking fly without making me watch?”

Agnes makes him watch her catch the fly. She makes a disgusting noise in the back of her throat as she swallows it. 

Taako returns to his grading. 

A rift forms at the front door two hours later, and Kravitz comes storming in, Lup and Barry close at his heels. They disappear into the kitchen as a collective flurry of raven feathered cloaks, and the sound of slamming cabinets and running water fills the air. Kravitz sticks his skeletal head through the doorframe. “Hey, Babe?” When Taako raises his free hand to wave, “where’s the kitchen med kit?”

He grunts, scribbling a correction in the margins. “With the pasta, I think?” Glancing to Kravitz out of the corner of his eye, “which one of your dipshits got hurt?”

“ _ Your  _ flesh and blood dipshit, asshole!” Calls Lup from the kitchen. Barry makes a victorious sound, signaling that he found the medkit. “Necromancers have sharp fuckin knives and your boy’s outta spell slots!”

While Barry patches up Lup, Kravitz comes behind Taako to peer down at the lab reports. His flesh stitches back over the skeleton, warm hand coming to rest on the back of his neck. “How much time do we have?” He asks, grimacing as Taako marks local dumb shit Bethany’s grade as a big, fat zero. “‘Cause, uh. Apparently, if you get covered in enough blood, prestidigitation can’t get rid of it?”

Taako lets his pen clatter onto the coffee table, leaning back into Kravitz’s hand until he can see his face. “Have you tried turning your corporeal form on and off again?” The scowl that earns him is answer enough, even if Taako can tell he’s biting his cheek to keep back a smile. “Magnus told us to be there by five-thirty, so we’re leaving five minutes  _ after  _ . You’ve got, like, an hour, don’t even trip.”

An hour later and all of his lab reports graded, Lup lays a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “Taaks,” she says, gently, and nods her head towards the stairs. They’re both dressed already; they had been for half an hour now, just like Taako. Her lips are a thin line of worry, eyes shining in the TV’s light. Taako presses his lips to the side of her head, smiles at her, then Barry, and tells them to go on ahead and let the others know they’ll be a little late.

It’s been a year, now, since Kravitz died.

Again.

Taako was never under the assumption that he was the one with the short stick in the Hindermount Fortress deal. He’d probably tried to convince himself otherwise, at some point, but for as dumb as he likes to think he is he isn’t entirely stupid, not when it matters. So while the world went on, convinced that Taako grieved the loss of his boyfriend and moved on, Taako broke the one rule he’d made for himself, and he told someone that he didn’t lose his boyfriend.

Hekuba had thought that he was going a  _ little  _ mental until Taako had given her proof, and then all that she was worried about was helping Kravitz. Taako doesn’t trust her, not in the way that he trusts Merle, but from what he remembers from eleven years ago, all she ever wanted was to help the world heal. She just did it a little differently from the seven of them. 

The floorboards creak as Taako approaches their room, the door still ajar from when he’d left Kravitz in there so long ago. If it were five months ago, Taako would have gone haywire, pestering Hekuba’s cell until she answered and told him what to do next. He’s learned, since then. So he knocks on the frame gently and slips in through the open door.

Kravitz sits on his side of the bed, outlined in the orange-purple hues of the setting sun. His head is bowed, shirt untucked and hands in his lap. As Taako rounds their bed, passes the closet and the dresser and their combined bathroom, he sees the soft sweater clutched in his trembling fists, knuckles white. His golden eyes are distant, unfocused staring in the general direction of his hands. 

The window is open, and it’s cold outside.

Kravitz continues to stare at his hands.

Taako kneels in front of him, placing his hands over his. It’s not enough to truly shake him, but he blinks twice, and his chest starts heaving with breaths he doesn’t need to take. “Krav,” Taako says. His hands are still warm, despite the draft. “Krav, baby, you gotta look at me.”

That’s what does it, fortunately. Kravitz looks up, still dazed but him again, lips pursed and brows furrowed. “Is it time to go?” He asks, voice hoarse. Taako sighs, rising to shut the window. Behind him, Kravitz reaches for his stone, and curses when he sees the time. “Julia’s going to kill me.”

“No, she isn’t, because she loves you. They all do.” Crouching back down in front of Kravitz, “What happened?”

Kravitz blinks at him owlishly. “It wasn’t the cold, if that’s what you’re asking.” He pulls the sweater on in one swift motion, folding the turtleneck to lay properly around his neck. “I just. Tough mission. Tough _day_.” He glances down at his chest. He sighs, shaking his head and twisting his body from Taako.

Taako fully intends on having a stern talking to with the Raven Queen after this. Loudly. With a keynote presentation. Because she likes those, supposedly. He might not be able to get her to pass the worst missions to Lup and Barry because, well, he’s dead and thus the only one that can do them, but she’s at least gotta do a better job of not fucking him up even more. “Right. You still want to go? I can totally cancel on those fools and we can order some takeout.”

“Babe? That’s very sweet of you, and I love you, but you would have to find a way to kill me a third time to get me to miss this.” Kravitz stands up, pulling Taako with him. When he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes. He returns it anyway. “You happen to know where my blue coat is?”

He groans and marches into the hall, pointing at Kravitz menacingly on his way out. “Be glad I love you!”

“I’m glad every day!”

“That’s the gayest shit I’ve ever heard!”

“Oh? Then what does that make you?” Kravitz pops his head out of their bedroom, smirking. Taako pauses from where he was rummaging in the hall closet and promptly chucks his blue coat directly at his face. He catches it, laughing. 

Kravitz rifts them over to Magnus and Julia’s, directly into their living room. Ren steps effortlessly out of the portal’s way, pulling Johann with him. She doesn’t even pause her conversation with Lucretia and Avi, raising her voice to be heard. Angus snaps shut his journal abruptly and hops over the back of the couch, directly into Taako’s arms. “You made it!” He cries, adjusting his glasses from where they got pushed to his forehead. “I was starting to get worried.”

“And leave you in the same room with Mookie? Jesus, pumpkin, the hell do you take me for?” The child in question is, if what little Taako can hear is correct, currently trying to wrestle Archibald, Magnus and Julia’s husky. “Whose house are you staying at this weekend?”

“I, uh, I needed some help with the analysis you assigned us last week, if that’s alright with you,” Angus says, angling his head so that he can glance between Taako and Kravitz. “Lup said you’d be fine with it, but she was also setting legal papers on fire at the same time and also doesn’t live with you anymore, so I’m not sure I trust her judgment right now.”

Kravitz blinks. “She burned them  _ without  _ me?” He asks, incredulous. He presses a kiss to Taako’s temple before wandering off, muttering about rules and buzz-kills. 

“Well, I don’t have a clue what the fuck that meant, but if this were literally any other day he’d have given you the time of day to tell you that we don’t, like, hate your presence or whatever,” Taako says, and then promptly proceeds to knock his hat off of his head with the world’s gnarliest noogie. “Agnes the cat misses you anyway.” 

This is, naturally, the closest Taako has and ever will get to telling Angus that he’s always welcome. He might be opening up more, but he’d rather die than be as earnest as Kravitz is daily. So he leaves Angus with those parting words and wanders off in search of Merle and Davenport.

Who, unfortunately, seem to be in the middle of a phone conversation with John about ‘Alistair’ on the back porch. Alistair is, of course, Taako’s sweet and wonderful boyfriend that is a connoisseur of arts, a personal detective, and entirely made up. “—There’s no way he’s real,” John is saying, drowned out by Merle’s lengthy lecture about the importance of having faith. Taako sits down next to Merle and props his legs up across the two. “I know I’ve seen him in person but, hear me out, have you ever seen Lup and Alistair in the same place?”

Merle and Davenport dissolve into childish giggles. 

Now, Alistair is real, but only in name. No person legally exists named Alistair, therefore he isn't real, but he exists because Alistair is Kravitz. This, unfortunately, only came to be after the poor fucking idiot decided to trust Taako with the knowledge that he can change his corporeal form on command. The fact that he’s just never been seen by John with Lup in tow is a sheer fucking coincidence. “—No, no, we’re not laughing at you,” Merle says, while Davenport wipes tears from the corners of his eyes. “We just— We’re looking at him right now, and Alistair is  _ definitely  _ here, and he’s talking to Lup about paperwork.”

Kravitz is, in fact, arguing with Lup about paperwork. It’s more in line with the fact that she didn’t wait for her supervisor to be there before ‘having all of the fun’, but John doesn’t need to know that. Merle seems content to leave him hanging, abruptly cutting off the conversation with a “we’ll talk later.” 

Lucretia steps out onto the back porch right as Merle presses end, her stone pressed to her ear. “Varali, just tell Sabor that I set it aside for mandatory repairs.” She nods a greeting to the three of them before collapsing onto Davenport’s right and leaning heavily on him. He pats her head instinctually. “Listen to me. You can’t get in trouble. What is he going to do, pat you down? That’s just a lawsuit waiting to happen. Besides, I thought you had that job that… what do you mean you needed a  _ book _ . For your  _ what  _ ? Gods, you’re just doing what Taako— but you’re not getting caught. Right. If you do, though, Artemis Sterling can sort things out. We have an understanding. Bye now.”

“How is that kid taking a page out of my book?”

“She’s been copying pages out of some shitty book in the Catacombs trying to fix something that went wrong with her girlfriend. I’ve been telling her you  _ and  _ Davenport are willing to help, but she’s insistent on doing this herself. At this point, I’m just doing damage control.” 

Merle takes an obnoxious sip from his lemonade. It drips into his beard. “Are either of you going to tell us what Taako did, or are we going to just continue assuming he tried to summon something?”

Lucretia and Taako glance at each other over the back of the couch. “Fuck no we’re not telling you,” they say in unison. Taako rises to his feet, stretching out his back. “I’m going to see what the lovebirds are up to. They usually don’t take this long to get things started..”

He finds Magnus immediately, spread-eagle on the floor with a pile of dogs on top of him. He lifts a hand out of the mass of fur to wave at Taako. “I’m fine,” he says, like Taako ever doubted he wasn’t at his happiest if he wasn’t suffocating under a dog or five. “Jules! We’re not getting any younger!”

“It’s not my fault we lost it!” Comes the shouted response from one of the back rooms. “Told you we should have left it at Lucretia’s place!”

“Yeah, but then Ren would have gotten pasta sauce on it.” Taako plops himself down next to the dogpile. “And if you gave it to Lup, Barry would have gotten formaldehyde on it, and if you gave it to me it would be digesting in Agnes’ abominable stomach right about now.”

Magnus’s head pops out. “What about Davenport? He’s usually pretty responsible.”

“If he didn’t get oil on it, Merle would have spilled his bong water on it and I honestly don’t know which is worse.”

Julia lets out a shout of victory and comes running down the hall fast enough that she nearly trips over Magnus and all six of their dogs. “I got it! Everyone get the hell in here, and bring your presents!”

The living room of the Burnsides residence turns into a warzone in the minute it takes for Magnus to get out from under the dogs, Ren to corral anyone still outside inside, and for everyone else to find their presents. Amid this chaos sits Angus Mcdonald, brows furrowed and eyes trained vaguely forward. “...Presents?”

Taako walks by and knocks his hat into his face. “What, you think we forgot?” He laughs, a sharp, barking sound. “Go sit your ass down on the couch, we’ll be a second. Babe!”

“I know, I know, I’m getting it!” Kravitz calls out from the doorway, where he is currently rummaging through the seemingly infinite depths of his bag of holding. He pulls out an entire decaying arm and before he comes back to his senses long enough to put it away, Barry swoops by to spirit it away. Finally, he pulls a long wooden box from the bag, and joins Angus at the couch while Taako and Lup Mage Hand a cake into the room. 

Thankfully, neither of them manage to set the cake on fire in the process of lighting the candles. “So, we gonna sing that cultish song or are y’all gonna skip it because  _ boy howdy  _ ,” says Ren, sighing expansively. 

“I like happy birthday!” Inputs Mookie, the little shit. The entire room lets out a collective groan, Angus included, before they painfully put themselves through the hellish experience that is singing Happy Birthday. It’s slow, droning, and Avi takes a swig from his flask halfway through before passing it wordlessly to Johann, who looks like he’s just been handed the Holy Grail.

As Angus lets out a breath of relief and blows out the candles, Kravitz leans into Taako’s ear and says, “you know, if we were all wearing cloaks, this wouldn’t be too far off from how I first died.”

Taako, naturally, has no idea how he should respond to that. Mostly because he can’t tell if he’s joking or not. And also because Julia has slid an envelope across the table to Angus, already giving the spiel. “... We know it hasn’t been  _ too  _ long since you lost your Grandfather, but, uh--”

“—But most of us know better than anyone that the system doesn’t take too kindly to… Fuck, anyone.” Lup cuts in, resting a hand on Taako’s shoulder. “Lord knows Taako and I suffered through it for a time. But that doesn’t matter. Point is, we’ve all been talking about this for… wow, must be about a year and a half, now.

Angus, still glancing nervously around the room, rips open the envelope and unfolds the paper within. Taako presses his face into Kravitz’s shoulder to hide his smile at the sight of him, his tiny hands holding that paper and staring at it, then the others, like they’ve all grown a second head. Magnus coughs. “We’re all in agreement that you’ve been a part of this family long enough to make things official, kid. Julia and I, we figured it would be best for us to put it down, on account of us already looking into adoption, so… happy birthday, Angus.”

“...You’re not pulling a goof, right?” Angus asks, his voice small. There are tears in his eyes and his whole body trembles. He looks from Magnus to Merle, to Davenport to Julia, to Barry, to Lup, to Lucretia, and settles on Taako, who has pried himself from Kravitz’s side. “Because this would be a very mean thing to do to me.”

“It’s real.” And with that, Angus is pulling Magnus and Julia into a bone-crushing hug. They laugh, and Julia wipes away his tears, and she sends him over to Lup, Barry, Taako, and Kravitz, who welcome him with open arms. His tears soak Taako’s shirt, and he allows himself this moment, this one day, to run his hands across Angus’s curls. “You’re happy, here,” he whispers. Later, he’d deny ever saying it, claim that if anyone Kravitz had been the schmutz to get all soft. “I might be an asshole, but I’m not cruel. I wouldn’t take that from you, and neither would anyone else.”

The rest of Angus’s eleventh birthday passes in obscurity, compared to that first gift. Kravitz and Taako got him a new wand, a nice sturdy one that doesn’t hold a fucking candle to the branch he’s had for the past four years. The card that came with it is, according to Kravitz, sappy as hell, but he doesn’t mention that most of the sap was on Taako’s end. He’s endlessly happy to let the entire world think that he’s entirely made of sincerity if it means that Taako can continue to pretend he has a heart of stone. Taako would marry him for that fact alone.

He’d marry Kravitz for less than that fact, but that’s neither here nor there.

Three hours later, Taako is found back on the back porch, nursing another glass of wine and staring up at the night sky. Beside him is Istus, though neither of them are quite sure when she showed up. Taako likes to think she appeared just now, and treats the situation as such. “You got a job for me?” He asks, lifting his glass to his lips. The ring on his thumb glows in the moonlight. “Because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m kinda busy.”

“Very funny,” Istus says. Her hair pools around her head in a pristine white halo, scarf tangled between them. “My wife is worried about you, I’m worried about Kravitz. She’s currently sorting through the souls that just got sent her way, so I got tasked with the dirty work.”

“I’m sorry, the Raven Queen is  _ worried  _ about me? You going to elaborate on that, bud?”

Sighing, she rests her head on her propped up arm. “She thinks you’re repressing something. I tried to tell her that she’s just feeling Kravitz’s worry, but that just made it worse. They’re like a shitty feedback loop off of each other.” Glancing over his form, she quirks a brow. “I saw that Kravitz changed my tapestry. The way events were set up, the most likely outcome was that he showered, changed, and took a nap in your lap until you were set to leave. What changed?”

Taako shrugs his shoulders. “You can ask him yourself. He doesn’t usually tell me. All I know is that Lup and Barry’s diplomatic mission for the Church of the Raven Queen went awry and Kravitz had to clean it up. I think he knows what happened, but it’s one of the things he likes to keep to himself.” He looks up at Istus. His eyes squint with the wry smile he gives her. “Just like how I’ll never tell him what I’ve done on Hindermount.”

Istus hums and collapses back onto her back as footsteps in the grass approach. Kravitz comes to stand at Taako’s feet, holding a hand out to him, and for a moment, Taako is back on the shores of the astral plane, and a skeletal hand reaches into view to pull him from the sand. Istus is gone when he glances her way, but Kravitz remains, smiling gently. “Angus fell asleep a couple of minutes ago. I figured we should head home.” 

There’s something about the way Kravitz says ‘home’ that resonates in Taako. Like he goes back to never having a home until Kravitz returns. Or, rather, it’s the way he says it that sounds like an absolution of his soul as if the fourteen voices of the Raven Queen that screamed his crimes in the Astral Plane are gone, and he suffocates under the reality of being forgiven for things he never confessed in the first place. It’s the feeling of belonging, of a future that doesn’t end in being alone.

He sighs, and it’s like the weight of the world has been removed from his shoulders.

And he takes Kravitz’s hand.

**⋆✧⋆**

The Raven Queen and Istus’s wedding begins with a murder. Kravitz is the one to commit it, sent out on a last-minute mission to bring in the soul of an illegal necromancer that had taken note of the absence of gods and tried to destroy the world at its seams. He doesn’t remember much of the hunt, nor the battle, but he remembers the returning.

He remembers walking into The Raven Queen’s changing room, set aside in the Celestial Plane, and stumbling into the nearest empty seat. She had barked an order, and then Eilistraee was there, wiping the blood off of him with gentle hands and asking if he needed someone. He exhales, then, a breath that he doesn’t need, and shakes his head. Her eyes are a solid white, but when Kravitz looks up into them he feels understood. “Alright,” she says as she plucks the Key to All Doors from his loose grip, “then we need to get you changed out of this. Nera says your form is a construct, but you don’t treat it that way, so I’m going to help you get changed, and you can zip up my dress. Deal?”

“Give him some of the wine,” The Raven Queen says from her vanity, glancing over to them in the mirror. She’s scrutinizing the details of her ceremonial helmet, turning it in her hands to watch how the light reflects off of it. Compared to Kravitz, who finds he rather feels a general lacking, her emotions are a storm within him, a nervousness that nearly beats out of his chest and settles uncomfortably in his stomach. The worry for him is there, too, but it is overshadowed by her anxiety. “I find it helps.”

Istus was the one to hand-tailor this suit for him after they both realized that most of Kravitz’s finer clothes had been donated to charity as a cove, excluding his cufflinks, which was among the items Taako kept under his bed in the time Kravitz was… absent. It’s not a suit of any notability, though she had cunningly matched it to the Raven Queen’s ceremonial armor. His cloak fits perfectly over it, snug against his clavicle. Eilistraee hums approvingly once she snaps it shut across his shoulders, circling him. “I do say, that lover of yours won’t be able to take his eyes off of you so long as you wear this.” She smiles up at him, one that he shakingly returns, before turning her back to him and gesturing to the zipper stuck halfway up her back. “Nera, where  _ did  _ you find this boy?”

The Raven Queen laughs, a crisp sound uninterrupted by the other voices that often join her. “Phandalin, of all places.”

“I don’t know what you have against Phandalin, it’s a perfectly respectable city.” Kravitz adjusts his sleeves, scowling at the cufflinks. When he looks up, Eilistraee is staring at him blankly. If he were to look to his side, he would find the Raven Queen doing much the same. 

“Gundren Rockseeker,” they say in unison.

“A dwarf goes nuclear  _ one time  _ and suddenly you’re the worst goddamn city in Faerun!” Throwing his hands up in exasperation, Kravitz stalks over to the opposite end of the room and flops into the nearest chair. “No one says anything about Refuge, and half of its citizens skipped town to go to Neverwinter!”

They argue about Phandalin throughout the remainder of the time that it takes the Raven Queen to get ready, an easy banter that brings the tension from Kravitz’s shoulders. 

He wants to say that not every job that she sends him on ends like the one from that morning. And it doesn’t, not completely, but there is a certain… exhaustion that comes with facing something he hadn’t known about six months ago, something that was pushed to the back of his mind and, inadvertently, made him a better person because of it. He’s learned to handle it decently enough, though he has the Raven Queen to thank for the fact that he no longer suffers through reliving his deaths in his dreams. Taako, thankfully, hasn’t fully been made aware of the extent that this bone-deep weariness goes, too busy balancing Kravitz’s old shifts at the Davy Lamp and finishing his studies. 

It says something about him that Kravitz would gladly shoulder the weight of his past in silence, if it meant he could keep the light of Taako’s smile in permanent splendor.

The ceremony is short, in comparison to the celebration, though no less convoluted with traditions that died eons ago with The Raven Queen’s mortal form. There is no bridal party for either side, only rows and rows of chairs with gods, spirits, and mortals alike. Kravitz had been haphazardly shoved into the “living” row, on account of Istus' stubborn insistence that a heartbeat or lackthereof doesn’t determine a state of living. Taako is beside him to his left, and Ren is to his right, though he sticks out like a sore thumb in the sea of their colorful clashing of clothes. 

The officiant, Hestia, pulls a chalice from a table behind her, and Taako tugs insistently on Kravitz’s sleeve. “We stole that from the Elemental Plane of Earth,” he says, excited. “It’s supposed to taste like your worst nightmare, so I don’t really—”

The Raven Queen lifts the chalice to Istus’s lips, who blinks harshly, and, once the chalice lowers, announces, to no one in particular, “It tastes like fucking  _ Key lime  _ .” Beside him, Taako nods solemnly, like this makes total sense. The Raven Queen looks abashed after Istus repeats the gesture, licking her lips and coughing nervously. She opens her mouth to speak, closes it, and then sighs with her entire body. Istus pats her arm consolingly. “It’s okay, darling, take your time.”

“Fellow members of the Pantheon, when I first joined you said I could neither say nor do anything that could invoke your fury. Does this stand true?” A low rumbling of assent rustles through the crowd, and Kravitz notes with some deliberation that the Raven Queen manages to be both resigned and terrified by this at the same time. Looking to the gathered members, “it tastes like Tempus’ beef stew.”

The Pantheon erupts into chaos without a second’s deliberation. Someone throws an entire bunch of grapes into the air, and if Kravitz’s ears don’t betray him, someone else tries to unsheath a sword. Magnus leans over Lup and Barry to half-hiss half-whisper to, presumably, Kravitz and Merle. “Why is everyone pissed? I failed my religion check.”

“No one’s insulted his beef stew since the dawn of time,” Merle responds, twirling his beard. “It’s probably the same thing as telling your mom you never really liked her shitty oatmeal cookies, even though every time she made them for you you’d say they’re your favorite.”

“Or a declaration of war,” Kravitz says idly, watching as Hestia pushes past the brides to scold the entire Pantheon of gods. “He  _ is  _ the god of it, after all.”

Julia and Barry laugh, forced and anxious. Lup pulls a ziplock bag filled with a pre-made margarita out of Taako’s purse and slams a straw into it. Taako has presumably gone to his happy place, blankly staring at the sky of the Celestial plane. Merle turns around in his seat to talk Pan’s ear off and stays there for the entire three minutes it takes for Hestia to turn gods into abashed children. She returns to the brides, nodding contentedly at the ensuing silence. “Now that you’re done acting like you’re all twelve hundred,” she says, opening a thick tome with a smile, “How about we get these ladies married, yes?”

**✧**

  
  


A thick, large, sickly green hand grabs Kravitz by the front of his face, slamming his skull into a stone wall repeatedly. He digs his fingers into the meat of a single finger pressed over his teeth, bracing for the impact each time. He feels his skull shatter five times over, pieces peeling off and clattering to the floor. He watches through a gap in the troll’s gargantuan fingers as an arcane shield sends seven goblins into the air. The spherical shield races up the towering staircase at the end of the room. As Kravitz braces for another impact and readies another spell, a voice calls out, “It’s not here!” 

Kravitz curses, casting power word stun. The troll previously beating him within an inch of his life loosens its grip, reeling. He uses the much-needed room to swing his legs up, pressing the sharp heels of his shoes into the troll’s sternum. It releases him to the floor harshly enough that another piece of Kravitz’s skull falls out of his head. He brings his scythe through the troll’s middle, grimacing as it forces through skin and bone. The top half of it falls to the ground, an earthquake shooting through the dungeon upon impact. “Did you try looking again?” Kravitz asks, pressing his hands over the exposed back of his skull. At the rate this form took damage, it would be a miracle if he managed to make it back home before losing it completely. “Because if Lup’s intel was right, which it  _ is _ ,no one’s been in this temple for centuries.” 

Stumbling up the unstable and eroded staircase, Kravitz stops at the top to catch his breath. Inside, he hears the rustling of papers and the shifting of creaking chairs. “Well, it’s not on the illuminated podium, so  _ someone  _ must’ve gotten in. Or… Wait, there’s a bookshelf here. Come on, help me move it, while you’re still physical.”

He sighs, pushing himself from the wall and dragging himself over to the wall. He sees a flash of a red jacket on the other side and braces his hands on the sides of the frame. “Alright, go.” Taking the brunt of it, Kravitz pulls the bookshelf towards his chest and backpedals. 

“That should do it.” Dusting off his skeletal hands, Kravitz rounds the bookshelf and, at the sight of her aghast expression, narrows his eyes at Lucretia. She coughs into the sleeve of her jacket then gestures to her face, flushing. “You uh. You’re glowing? I just don’t know how to deal with that.”

“That would be my soul, Lucretia.” Voice flat, he gestures to the staircase they had just uncovered. “Now do you want this book or do you want to continue to ask me about the intricacies of my corporeal form?”

She glares at him as if she could somehow assess him, a literal skeleton with no faculty to express emotion. She relents, pivoting and marching into the next room. “Taako’s a bad influence on you,” she states matter-of-factly. “You were so nice to me when you had only known him for a month.”

Kravitz sends out a ball of light ahead of them and pulls his cloak’s hood back up. “If he was a bad influence on me, I dread the thought of what Ren has done to you.” The room is drafty, with barely-there signs of life. A bedroom, if he had to guess from the wood and blankets scattered about. There are the remains of a skeleton, sprawled in the center of the remnants of the bed. Lucretia sets herself up at the desk and starts rummaging. “Who is...still coming tonight?”

“I can’t quite tell if you’re grinning at me or not, considering… but, yes, she’s still coming, and you could have asked her that yourself. Not like you weren’t best friends before you introduced us.” She opens a drawer, then closes it abruptly. “Don’t look in there.”

“Wasn’t planning on it.” He sorts through the remains of the bed, mostly for the fact that he can’t get splinters in this form. They work in tense silence as they wait for the next ambush to come.

It doesn’t, amazingly.

Instead, Kravitz pulls the last blanket up and finds a box, covered by the remains of an old feather pillow. He smashes the lock open, hauling the thick book stored inside out. “Got it,” he says, tossing it to Lucretia. She stumbles under the weight of it. Then she opens it, flipping greedily through the pages. “What the hell do you even need that sad old thing for, anyway?”

“I’m starting a library,” she says, a little out of breath. She adjusts her glasses with her pinkie before running a hand over her shaved head. “No one knows how long books can last but if I find a safe place for them, where mortal greed can’t destroy them? Then that knowledge remains forever. Granted, there’s a lot of transcribing and transferring involved, but imagine how much easier it would be for you to simply look things up rather than go the long route. I’m sure Taako would have wanted that, considering all the digging he had to do on relics and languages.” 

Kravitz agrees; he’s seen Taako’s research. Sterling had returned it all to him after he’d gone directly to him making a stink about how he wanted to teach his students about a relic that no longer exists, and the only evidence that he  _ saw  _ it was his notes. It was… jarring, looking over them. For the most part, it’s because the first folder of ten starts with the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, talking about  _ Merle  _ and his connection to the Rockseekers and-- oh. He  _ met  _ Merle when they were in Phandalin. He had both arms, then, but it was still him. The others are similar, though Kravitz had never had the misfortune to witness those events personally. 

He thinks that Lucretia’s library would have spared him from the sleepless nights, if it wouldn’t have given him the time he would have needed to see the carnage across Faerun and think ‘ _ I’m doing the right thing’ _ . Because Taako didn’t believe in a single damn thing about the Red Robes then, and he still finds it hard to, now. Kravitz knows it, even if he never spoke a word about it. It’s written in the way that he’ll sometimes look at Angus, and something in him softens, says maybe it was worth it, and then he’ll look at Lucretia and go back to indifference.

“You got a room set aside for that?” He asks, readying his scythe. Lucretia gives him a blank stare.

“Kravitz, I asked for your help because you’re the  _ only  _ person that knows I do.” He opens a tiny little rift, just small enough for the book, and Lucretia tosses it through without breaking eye contact. “Let’s go see if Luca remembers any healing spells that can fix your… problem.”

He yanks his scythe further down, opening the rift wide. He hears Ren curse and drop a baking sheet. “I’ve already died twice. I’m sure I can wait a couple of hours with half a skull missing,” Kravitz drawls, stepping through the rift after Lucretia. Ren tosses the aforementioned baking sheet into the sink, glaring up at them as they enter. Her expression falls at the sight of Kravitz, who is already in the process of waving her off. “I’m  _ fine _ , don’t pull a muscle worrying about me. Lucretia, can you—?”

“—I’m getting him,” she says, flipping the bird briefly in his direction before vanishing through the swinging door. 

“I think you’re scarier lookin like that,” is what Ren says to break the ensuing silence. Kravitz laughs, his bones rattling with the movement. She manhandles him into a stool to get him low enough that anyone eating in the room over couldn’t glance up and see an honest to god skeleton. “How’d yer uh… secret spy mission go?”

He stares at her. She stares at him. Slowly, he gestures to his skull. She slaps his hand down with a dirty look on her face. “It went good,” he says, running a hand over the front of his suit. “We sorta had to wing it, after a while, but that girl of your’s sure can handle herself in a fight.”

He doesn’t tell her that she would have died in that dungeon if she hadn’t called him to help. If he weren’t immortal, that troll would have killed him a third time after it had thrown the first punch. They’re lucky that she followed her intuition and swallowed her pride, but the what-if is nearly too much to bear. 

Luca bursts into the kitchen, breaking off Kravitz’s current train of thought. “Holy  _ shit _ , you’re a glowstick,” he blurts. Lucretia pinches the bridge of her nose behind him. “I mean—uh, yeah, I can  _ probably  _ fix that? Like, from one ex-skeleton to a current one, it’s probably the same concept?”

It takes him twenty minutes to figure it out. They have Kravitz sit down on the floor and Luca takes the stool when it becomes apparent they're going to be here for a while. June comes in briefly to drop off a steaming cup of hot chocolate, whistling sympathetically at Kravitz’s current state on her way out. At some point, someone puts a finger into the inside of his skull, because they’re fucking  _ stupid _ , and end up vomiting into the sink when a surge of his emotions pass into theirs. From the sound of it, it was Ren.

Then Luca pats his shoulder, and he feels him stand up. “Alright,” he says, “that should do it.”

Kravitz lets the skin stitch over his bones, sighing like he’s just taken his first breath in ages. When he opens his eyes again, he is alone in the kitchen, save for Lucretia. A raven is perched on her shoulder, golden eyes trained on his. Slowly, Lucretia tries to feed it a piece of bread. It does not open its mouth. “ _ You knocked over a table, _ ” says the Raven Queen, and her irritation burns like wildfire in his lungs. The raven ruffles its feathers. “ _ It spilled hot tea on my lap. _ ”

“She wasn’t even mad about it, was she?” Kravitz asks. The raven scowls at him.

He laughs, and it comes out sounding like a raven's shrill cry.

**✧**

Taako has lectures on Thursdays, more often than not, and Kravitz tries to sit in on the tail ends when he can. It’s easy enough to open the back door and slip into one of the last open seats when the lecture hall is large enough to easily fit three hundred, even easier to watch Taako at work. He’s got a mess of equations across the three blackboards, right now, his hair in disarray and eyes wild. In the center of the board is a single word; bonds. From the sound of it, another student had managed to side-track him into one of his “mad scientist rants”, or, rather, they  _ think  _ they have him sidetracked. From the glint in his eyes, he has them right where he wants them.

“The gods don’t  _ control  _ what we can and cannot transmute,” he’s saying, pointing a finger accusingly at a student in the front row. “They are the beginning and the end, a finish line with a path that we create ourselves. If a god of nature wants  _ growth  _ , they put the idea into someone’s head, and that person creates, say, the Gaia Sash. Which, I’m just saying it now, isn’t as badass as you think it is.” This sends the class into an uproar, a mass collection of voices clamoring to ask about the gauntlet and how he  _ knows  _ it isn’t badass. Taako waits, patiently, until they settle. “Are you done? Because we can sit here and talk all day about the Gaia Sash and Goldcliff, but I’d rather you learn something that I  _ want  _ to talk about.”

He looks up and seeks out Kravitz in the crowd. He waves at him, and watches as Taako’s face softens. “What I’m  _ trying  _ to say is that we do have free will, at the end of it all. People choose to start wars on their own, even if a god is the one that gave them the idea, they still chose to act on it.” He gestures back to the board. “That’s all Bond-Manipulated Transmutation was. Trust me, I asked Istus. She gave me the idea for a  _ whole  _ other fucking tapestry, and I made it into this. So, in the end, it doesn’t  _ matter  _ what they want us to transmute.” He pulls a small rock from his pocket, holding it out so everyone can see it. He tosses it, and, with a quick twist of his hands, there is a glaive stabbed through the floor, standing at attention. It’s the same glaive Taako had brought with him to Hindermount, though he calls it something different, now… The Philosopher’s Stone, or something like that. He looks back at the class, spreading his arms wide and smiling wide enough to bare teeth. His eyes are greedy, filled with pride. It’s not as unnerving as it used to be. If anything, Kravitz would say that Taako is finally content, in whatever way that matters. “Why would it, when I can do this?”

The rest of the lesson is inconsequential, something that Kravitz pays close attention to, but never quite absorbs nor understands. He never had the brains that Taako does, and he’s content to just watch him talk about the one good thing (according to him) to come out of Barry and Lup’s lichdom. Taako keeps the glaive in his hands the entire time, using it to gesture to words he’s written that are higher than he can reach. Eventually, he stops, glances to the time, and the glaive vanishes back into an unassuming rock. “Everyone done copying that shit? No? Cool, get it from someone else. Now everyone  _ scram _ , I have a date to get to.” What Taako doesn’t mention is that he’s ending the class ten minutes early. But, of course, since this is a learning institution, someone opens their mouth and begins to say something when Taako pivots abruptly and casts a spell that puts a bubble around her head. She continues to speak, unaware that she has been forcefully muted. He raises a brow to what little students still haven’t already booked it. 

They leave in a half-sprint and shove their books into their bags on the way out. Kravitz rises from his seat, taking time to pop his back before he descends the steps. “How many of your new students keep pulling god cards on you?” He asks, conversationally, as Taako works on packing his shit within record time. “Because I’m sure I can get the rest of the pantheon to just sorta… collectively side with you. That  _ is  _ a thing either of us can do, you know that, right babe?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can. But I’m going to beat a love of transmutation and a disregard for celestial authority into these kids if I have to fucking beat it into them.” Taako waves dismissively, closing the buckles of his back with a decisive snap. He rounds his desk to lock the doors of the lecture hall before gesturing to Kravitz to open the rift. “Can’t do that if they know I’ve got direct lines to fate, they’ll think I'm a hypocrite.”

“You  _ did  _ call Gaia a bitch directly to her face,” concedes Kravitz. He tears open a rift with the flick of a wrist and they walk through. They emerge into an alley nearby Pots n Shots, dark enough that Kravitz can alter his current physical form without seeking the nearest bathroom. When his form settles, he turns his gaze to Taako. “Good?”

Warm hands frame his jaw, turning him from side to side. Taako’s rings snag against his skin when he moves. With a put-out sigh, he releases his hands and steps back. “I still think Alistair looks like a douchebag,” he says. Kravitz laughs, snagging Taako’s hand and pulling him into a kiss. His free hand rests on his waist, a feather-light presence that never fails to make his heart feel full enough to burst.

“That's the point, love,” Kravitz says when he pulls away, leading them out of the alley. “He looks like a douchebag because you  _ made  _ him one.”

Lucretia and Ren are organizing the trays of shots by color when they enter, which is… an interesting circumstance considering Ren is colorblind. They take up the empty seats beside them, just as Ren puts a red next to a green and nods to herself. Lucretia grimaces. “Sorry we’re late,” Taako says, not sounding particularly sorry at all. Ren waves him off, squinting at her mismatched rainbow of shots. With a shrug, she passes it over to Kravitz. 

Across the room, the instructor turns around from where he was helping another double-date set up, sees Taako and Ren, and considers turning in his two-weeks notice.

By the end of the night, they’ve managed to turn bowls into cauldrons, and as Lucretia puts the finishing touches on the flowers lining hers, Kravitz watches their instructor begin writing his resignation letter at a nearby empty table. Beside him, Taako turns one of the shots into glaze and dumps inside his cauldron with barely contained glee. Kravitz shares a look with Ren, both feeling more in love than they ever thought possible.

Outside, a Raven watches them on a lamppost. 

It watches, head tilted with curiosity, as four people exit, the last to leave. It knows three of them intimately, has seen them through eyes that were not its own as they grew up and struggled and thrived. It knows one of the three as it knows itself, and feels a sharp tug inside its chest as this one laughs, throwing his head back. He doesn’t look like how it was used to seeing him but, then again, it was not the same raven it was a year ago. This one turns to the other two, those that shine bright with potential and purpose and  _ bonds _ , waving expansively as he tells a grand tale. One of the two is glued to his side, eyes shining. The Raven is inclined to watch him just as closely as the one that no longer looks like himself, like it was made just to admire them. 

The other one that the raven knows is a woman with shaved white hair and laugh lines. She is known to it in the same way that most people are; those who the Raven Queen knows intimately are thus known by the ravens. 

The first one that the raven knows looks down at the elf in his arms, and he looks up at him, and the raven believes that it knows what belonging is, in any sense of the word. It had only known the first one, who in turn was a drifter without an anchor, followed by misfortune and symphonies. And yet, now, with a swelling of emotion in its chest, the raven feels a thread go taut, the last note of a grand symphony written.

And then the last white feather upon its body turns black as night.

Kravitz stops abruptly in the street, a hand pressed against his chest. His heart doesn’t beat, not in any term that matters, but it’s a close thing, the electric shock that pulses through him. Taako watches him curiously, as do Ren and Lucretia, all having stopped with him. Taako presses a hand against the exposed skin on his wrist, and they both startle apart at the contact. Then, with the same sort of perplexed wonder and twin smiles, Taako presses his hand against Kravitz’s, palm against palm, fingers intertwined. Not much has changed, upon further inspection; Taako’s rings are still cold, as are the tips of his fingers, but his hands were always chilly in the winter. But Kravitz?

His hand is _warm_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap! I'm so glad to be able to have finished my first TAZ fic and, trust me, I guarantee you it won't be the last! You'll note this fic is now the first in a series; I'm currently working on a "prequel fic" for this AU, as well as a couple one-shots detailing the events that happen after the end of this fic. I'm also in the process of plotting out an Amnesty fic! I'm close to a point where I can start, but I'm not sure when I'll start posting it, so I'll probably put an update on my Tumblr for anyone interested
> 
> I want to thank all of you for reading this fic, especially those of you who took time out of your days to comment. I wouldn't have been able to finish this fic without your support, and I hope that you will continue to support me with the rest of the series.  
> As always, [I have a Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/hekaerge-athenias) , where I'll be posting updates for fics and my art :) Thank you again for sticking with me.

**Author's Note:**

> Edit 1/27/20: I can’t believe I forgot to mention this but IF YOU SEE THE WORD “WAGON” WE’RE TALKING ABOUT FANTASY CARS. Or everyone’s driving station wagons, take your pick


End file.
